Damelya Aitkhozhina

Damelya Aitkhozhina is a researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division.

A lawyer by training, prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Aitkhozhina worked on a number of projects aimed at promoting human rights in the Russian Federation and Central Asian region, including the European Human Rights Advocacy Center and the Russian Justice Initiative, and as a Russia Researcher with Amnesty International. She also has considerable experience working in the United Nations in Central Asia.

She holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, an LLM in international human rights law from the University of Essex (UK), and her law degree from Adliet Higher Law School (Kazakhstan). She speaks English and Russian.