Country of Origin: Pakistan
Main focus: Women’s Rights
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Rehana Hashmi is the founder of Sisters Trust, a non-profit organization that respects, protects, and celebrates exiled women defenders. We provide the support these women need to live, heal, and continue their essential work while in Canada.

Rehana was born in a small town and raised in the remote city of Mastung in Baluchistan, Pakistan. She learned about responsibility and leadership from an early age by observing her father's activism against the authoritarian regime.

When she was 17, Rehana was forced to leave her home after organizing a protest in a conservative town in the north of Pakistan. She continued to work against child marriage, acid crimes, violence against women, and extremism, even though this work often exposed her to severe threats.

In 2011, after the assassination of Salman Taseer (a prominent political figure in Pakistan) by religious extremists, Rehana sought to escape from the growing danger against herself and others who shared her beliefs.

She moved to Canada as a visitor in the fall of 2016. She was traumatized and depressed, but still deeply concerned about the vulnerable communities and colleagues left behind.

However, while she wanted to continue her activism and campaign work and sought help from various Canadian human rights groups, Rehana found no support to continue championing causes like the ones for which she had spent a lifetime working.

But having faced adversity before, Rehana would not stop fighting for her beliefs.

She established the Sisters Trust to facilitate and empower other women human rights defenders in exile. To date, one of her biggest successes is persuading the Canadian government to recognize Human Rights Defenders as an immigration priority."