Afifa Hashimi

Expert Overview

Afifa Hashimi is an expert on issues of human rights; equity, diversity, and inclusion, racism, gender equity, social justice and Islamophobia.

Afifa Hashimi is a lawyer at Moore Edgar Lyster LLP in Vancouver. As an advocate for human rights and on behalf of unions and workers, she practices labour, employment, human rights, regulatory, and administrative law. She is a Muslim woman settler of Afghan and Indian (Punjabi) ancestry.

Afifa has contributed to advocacy, research, and writing for several public interest and social justice organizations. Her focus areas include human rights, labour and employment law, racial equity, gender equity and feminism, and workplace equity, diversity, and inclusion.

As a speaker and moderator, she has engaged in public speaking on equity and human rights issues at educational events. Afifa was a panelist on a "Know Your Rights" webinar (2021) hosted by the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association and South Asian Legal Clinic of BC in response to the increase in racial profiling, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racism since 9/11 for people from the South Asian diaspora.

Afifa has served as the Vice President - External of the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (British Columbia) Society (FACL BC), overseeing the organization’s external relations and advocacy initiatives to promote equity, justice, and opportunity. This included political engagement about systemic issues such as racism. She has been involved in many initiatives to promote equity within the legal profession.

Afifa is an Associate Producer of FACL BC's first documentary, "But I Look Like a Lawyer" (2021), about the discrimination, stereotyping, and bias experienced by members of the Pan-Asian legal community.

Afifa holds a law degree and a BA (Honours) in Political Science, which included an honours thesis on women’s civil society participation and the variation in women’s rights worldwide. She has also written several blog articles about social justice issues, one of which was cited in The Criminalization of Migration: Context and Consequences (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018).