Jo is an independent researcher with a focus on social exclusion, human rights and gender. She holds an MA (Distinction) in Human Rights Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies, and has a background in policy, advocacy and journalism, particularly in Asia. She is currently employed as a consultant by UN Women, in New York.

Her recent work with the Cairo Institute on Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), the International Crisis Group and the Helen Bamber Foundation, spans aspects of gender and ethnic exclusion in post-conflict contexts, religious defamation and free expression in OIC countries, and the correlation between torture and trafficking. She has worked as an editor for the Redress Trust, and will publish a policy paper with the International Service for Human Rights, early this year

Her latest project is on the exclusion of minority women from Sri Lanka’s reconciliation commission, and will be published by the Law and Society Trust Review in Sri Lanka.

Jo transitioned into the human rights field from full-time journalism via the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and Asian Legal Resources Centre (ALRC) in Hong Kong, as editor and coordinator of the Urgent Appeals Programme (more on this here).  She has attended various sessions of the UN Human Rights Council, to make submissions on behalf of the AHRC, and to present research (for the CIHRS) at an expert side panel on religious defamation and Islamophobia, alongside senior OHCHR staff.

As a journalist Jo specialises in design, and social justice and development, and has written regularly for mainstream publications such as  Time Magazine and the South China Morning Post, as well as human rights journals and online news portals, among them the Asia Sentinel and Open Democracy. Her interview subjects have included former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan, NGO founder Cameron Sinclair, architect Tadao Ando and actress Jane Seymour; her assignments have spanned land rights in Cambodia to Sri Lankan witness protection and anti-torture legislation. She has lived and worked in the US, the UK, China, Japan and Australia.

www.jobakeronline.com features the selected works of Baker’s, published during the last few years.  Click here for a full list of publications. For more professional details refer to LinkedIn.