Biography

As a Jordanian woman who is the author of “Years of Struggle – The Women’s Movement in Jordan (2021) and “Murder in the Name of Honour (2009)”, a human rights activist and senior journalist writing for The Jordan Times, Husseini focused on social issues for over 25 years with a special emphasis on violence against women, as well as the brutal crimes that are committed against Jordanian women in the name of family honor.

Her coverage of and dedication to ending this unjustified practice against women helped raise national awareness on a topic that is traditionally considered taboo. The government responded by introducing legal and judicial changes that suggest tougher punishments for perpetrators of such crimes as well as introducing new services to help abused women.

In September 2021, Husseini published a book that documented the activism work of women in Jordan since the 1940s. The book, Years of Struggle – The Women’s Movement in Jordan, explored the tactics the women activists used to achieve many of their demands over the years as well as exploring their failures and future aspirations.

In 2009, Husseini published her first book on so-called honour crimes in the world, with special emphasis on Jordan. Her book, which was translated to English, Arabic, Dutch, and Finnish, focused on providing people with a credible source based on real-life experience and tackling a sensitive issue which is often susceptible to misconception.

Husseini has earned 10 local and international awards, including a medal from King Abdullah II in 2007, the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1998 for reporting on such crimes and The London Arabia Organisation Arab Woman of the Year Award in 2019 for social impact.

Husseini was interviewed by various local, Arab and international media such as CNN, ABC, BBC, DW, NY Times, VOA, PBS, Al Jazeera (Arabic & English), Al Arabia, MBC, and the Chicago Tribune. Based on these efforts she has been invited to lecture in several local and international conferences regarding the issue as well as women's rights in the region. She also took part in several TEDx and Bold talks in Jordan and countries of the region. 

The international recognition pushed a group of young Jordanians to contact Husseini in 1998 wanting to organize grass-root movements to fight this phenomenon. The result was the formation of the National Jordanian Committee to Eliminate so-called Crimes of Honour. In four months, the committee managed to raise people's awareness about these crimes and the injustices inflicted on women, in addition to collecting over 15,000 signatures demanding the cancellation of all the laws that offer leniency for such murders.

In addition to her extensive experience in the journalism field, Husseini has conducted several consultancies and advocacy for women for local and international organisation, UN agencies and international organizations. She has served as special advisor to UN Women (previously UNIFEM), UNICEF, Equality Now, Freedom House and Solidarity Is Global Institute (SIGI) on women’s issues and press freedoms in Jordan

Husseini also worked as a consultant and trainer for the Jordan Media Institute (JMI), the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) by conducting training workshops for local reporters and journalism students on reporting on gender, human rights and violence against women.

Husseini is currently serving in several boards including the Advisory Board of Equality Now Organisation that is based in the United States, and the Jordanian National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation.