Professor Lillian Artz
Prof Lillian Artz
BA SFU; BA (Hons) MA Cape Town; PhD Queen’s University Belfast
Lillian is the director of the Gender, Health and Justice Research Unit (GHJRU) in the Division of Forensic Medicine and is a professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Cape Town. She has worked in the in areas of domestic violence, sexual offences, incarcerated and institutionalised women, and women’s rights to freedom and security in Africa for almost 30 years. Lillian has worked as a technical consultant to a wide range of national human rights institutions, international development agencies and justice systems on law and policy reform, including the training and capacity-development of criminal justice personnel in Southern, Central and East Africa. Key projects have focused on female and other vulnerable populations in prisons and psychiatric settings, working with local governance structures to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, the prevention of torture and ill-treatment places of detention, and the medico-legal management of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence in conflict-affected, post-conflict and transitional African states. Her evidence-based contributions to law and policy reform, as well as the development of social justice projects in the African region, have earned her a number of awards, including a National Department of Science and Technology “Women in Science Distinguished Researcher Award” (2013) as well as the University of Cape Town’s first “Social Responsiveness Award” (2009). She is an elected member and fellow of the International Penal and Penitentiary Foundation – which holds consultative status at the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and the Council of Europe. She was a co-PI on South Africa’s first national prevalence study on child sexual abuse and maltreatment and is a Senior Technical Advisor for the research component of What Works 2 which focuses on supporting the scale-up, mainstreaming and innovation of projects across three priority regions, including Asia, North Africa and the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. She is currently the Editor in Chief of Acta Criminologica: African Journal of Criminology and Victimology.