INNOVATOR PROFILE

Harpreet Ahuja is a Canadian human rights defender. In her current role as an Investigator for the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth in Victoria, British Columbia, she reviews and investigates the critical injuries and deaths of children and youth in government care to help inform improvements to services to prevent similar incidents in the future. Her Labradorian Inuit and Indian (from India) roots, fueled her desire to use her academic success to challenge colonial legal practices. She has a wide-range of direct exposure to the legal and social inequities that exist for indigenous peoples, asylum-seekers and refugees, both in Canada and abroad. Her study abroad experiences, include: Ecuador, Poland, Rwanda, and Malawi. She's also worked abroad in: Honduras, India, and Israel. She earned her Master of Laws degree with a concentration in International Law from UCLA School of Law in 2019, and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law in 2017.