Kadiata Sy

About Kadiata

(updated 6/2018) Kadiata Sy arrived in Atlanta, GA as a refugee from Mauritania at the age of twelve. Resettling in a new environment without any knowledge of English and enrolling in a school for the first time of her young life, Kadi learned first-hand the empowering potential of education. Her experiences have motivated her to be a leader in her community and to continue to pursue higher education. Beginning at community college, Kadi was elected the Student Government President of her campus and active with several humanitarian organizations in the greater Atlanta area, including interning for the International Rescue Committee and mentoring refugee youth with the Refugee Family Services. Her passion for social change and leadership experiences working with non-profit organizations led to her induction into the Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Society. Kadi was also awarded the national Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, which sponsored her studies at Emory University. While at Emory, she founded the Middle Eastern Studies Association and worked with Emory Peer Tutoring as an Arabic tutor and mentor to provide campus-wide programming on Middle East-related issues. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies in 2015 as one of four Emory seniors to be selected as a Robert T. Jones Scholar. This enabled her to complete a Master of Letters in Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asian Security Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She received her M.A. in Islamic Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where she was elected Student Representative and served as a liaison between the administration and student body. At SOAS, Kadi specialized in the harmonization of Islamic Law and the Human Rights discourse. Her Master’s dissertation focused on the appointment of female judges in Shari’a courts in Muslim-majority countries and aimed to further her research on women’s agency within the Islamic legal framework. During her Luce Year, Kadi worked with Breakthrough Trust, a women’s rights organization that became internationally recognized and supported by the United Nations for their work on violence against women and for their programs intervening in cases of early marriage and fostering adolescent empowerment programs with a gender awareness perspective. At Breakthrough, Kadi researched gender bias sex selection in the state of Haryana, produced a document retracing Breakthrough’s early marriage program in Bihar and Jharkhand, and assisted in formulating a digital strategy for the organization stressing the critical role media plays in mobilizing for against violence against women and girls in all forms.  Kadi aspires to work in the field of human rights in Islamic law as both an activist and an academic, focusing on gender issues while pursuing doctoral studies.