naima sakande
Naima is a solicitor, freelance researcher and expert gender-based violence, criminal, racial justice and communications consultant. Her work currently includes advising the UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office on crisis communications strategy, combating the pushback that the sexual and reproductive health rights agenda is facing in the region.
Previously, Naima was Deputy Director at the legal charity APPEAL, where she led on communications, campaigning, racial justice efforts, survivor advocacy and co-production work, and women’s justice casework. She is a criminal defence investigator by training, beginning her career at The Bronx Defenders (a pioneering holistic defence practice in New York), she specialised in using impact litigation to challenge systemic injustices faced by women with complex needs, with histories of domestic abuse and mental illness in the criminal justice system.
Naima was a 2019 Griffins Society Fellow where she undertook a qualitative research project on the barriers faced by women in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), hosted at the Cambridge University Institute of Criminology. She graduated from Yale University with a degree in Global Affairs and International Development.
PUBLICATIONS
Sakande, N., & Waller, N. (2024). Doubt Dismissed: Race, Juries and Wrongful Conviction. APPEAL. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5537d8c5e4b095f8b43098ff/t/663a3c2c84676d21f4ec2765/1715092534697/FINAL_DOUBT+DISMISSED+REPORT.pdf
Waller, N., & Sakande, N. (2024). Majority jury verdicts in England and Wales: a vestige of white supremacy? Race & Class, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968231212992
Sakande, N. (2020). ‘Righting Wrongs: What are the barriers faced by women seeking to overturn unsafe convictions or unfair sentences in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division)?’, The Griffins Society. https://www.thegriffinssociety.org/righting-wrongs-what-are-barriers-faced-women-seeking-overturn-unsafe-convictions-or-unfair
Sakande, N., Padfield, N. (2020). ‘Time to appeal: An argument for extending time limits’. Criminal Law Review, (10), 931–935. https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/agispt.20200924037256
