Meet Oleksandra

Oleksandra (Lesya) Matviichuk is a global human rights defender from Ukraine who knows first hand the human and global implications of war. Lesya is the founder and head of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Center for Civil Liberties and a member of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, where she travels the world speaking on peace, women’s issues, and the plight of the world’s most vulnerable. 

Lesya is a talented organizer, bringing together human rights defenders of various backgrounds to create successful horizontal movements. Through her work at the Center for Civil Liberties, Lesya fights to protect human rights and establish long-lasting democracy in Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) region. Their work includes policy and legislative research, public oversight over law enforcement agencies and judiciary, and educational programs for young people interested in public service. 

At the Center for Civil Liberties, Lesya fights to protect human rights and establish long-lasting democracy in Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) region. Their work includes policy and legislative research, public oversight over law enforcement agencies and judiciary, and educational programs for young people interested in public service. 

Despite working towards defending human rights globally, when Russia launched its unprovoked war against freedom-loving Ukraine, Lesya knew that the only way to fight for justice and peace was to ensure Vladimir Putin and his Russian army are held accountable for their war crimes.

In February 2022, Matviichuk together with other partners created the ‘Tribunal for Putin’ initiative in order to document international crimes done by the Russian Federation under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in all regions of Ukraine.

In 2016, she received the Democracy Defender Award for ‘Exclusive Contribution to Promoting Democracy and Human Rights’ from missions to the OSCE. In 2017, she became the first woman to participate in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program of Stanford University. In 2022, Matviichuk was awarded with the Right Livelihood Award and recognised as one of the 25th influential women in the world by the Financial Times. The same year Center for Civil Liberties, which Matviichuk is head of, received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Lesya currently lives in war-torn Kyiv with her husband.