Hareem Aqdas is an intellectual and research-oriented college student with a current CGPA 3.8/4, enrolled in last semester of bachelor’s in international relations and politics, currently attending Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad. She originally belongs to a small town of Central Punjab, Jhang.

During her academic career, she also managed to get involved in practical research and implementation of my studies. She envisions becoming a United Nation’s diplomat to render my services in the international and diplomatic spheres of Pakistan, particularly under the UN Peacekeeping mechanism.

She is keen towards finding potential solutions to problems that concern my country on its basic questions of peace, international law, security, diplomacy, governance and stability through factual, authentic and evidence-based research while working on potential solutions she find during her research. She has already worked on three research papers on issues concerning the contemporary strategic/ diplomatic and legal threats to Pakistan, the matters that concern the peace, stability, sovereignty, the law, governance and security of the country directly and she is motivated towards continuing to do so.

She has done multiple projects in these domains and currently continuing her work under the implementation of international humanitarian law in Pakistan. Her most recent research project is underway that involves the case of custodial police torture by Pakistan’s police for evidence extraction and its implications in the international law. This project aims to find a solution to this problem and recommending them to the government. This would help find loopholes in the implementation of the international humanitarian law in Pakistan, particularly among the legal and bureaucratic structures of Pakistan.

The research papers she has written are titled as firstly, “Afghanistan Peace Process- Beyond 2018” (which has been written based on qualitative research done from individuals being the direct victims of the problem from around the country and gives a possible solution of how the concerning matter can be resolved, though yet the paper has not been published).
She also is involved in social work through a self-initiated project named “Women in Politics” where she motivate women from rural areas of Pakistan to join as political representatives’ politics from their respective areas being their primary motive to either join politics from their areas or to have a say in their political life either through vote, representation, association or contribution. She is also contributing from her native area as a young women politician and as a mentor for women who wish to pursue politics as a career through leading private training sessions and mentorship.

She has worked as a legal research assistant for attacks against journalists in Pakistan with an NGO called ‘Media Matters for Democracy’ whereby assisting in making reports of the safety of journalists in Pakistan and ensuring it by what the national law provides them. I had also been involved in their digital rights project whereby submitting an abstract on digital and cyber safety. I was also responsible to follow through the legal activities relating to the provision of freedom of expression in Pakistan and also, the court proceedings that journalists had to go through while suggesting them legal options.

She has also had the privilege of working as a researcher at the Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad and for social work-related NGOs that gave her a better insight of the society around me, adding to a necessary detail required in strategy formulation- the society. She has also been a part of U.S. Summer Sister’s Exchange Program in 2015, under Girls Leadership Worldwide at Eleanor Roosevelt Leadership Centre at Val-Kill, New York for training in leadership.

She is working as major contributor in an international project called “The Dialogue Room” where they are working on building a community of likeminded individuals wherein they provide a platform to initiate conversation for exchange of thoughts, ideas, beliefs, innovation etc.

In both my academic and professional life, she has been consistently praised as a “curious mind eager to learn, stimulate, question and finding solutions” by her professors and peers. Whether working on an academic, extracurricular, or professional project, she has proven to have a research-oriented mindset, with administrative attitude, excellent writing, interpersonal, leadership and organizing skills.