Dr. Elham Manea is an Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Zurich University. Manea is also a writer and human rights activist. She has published academic and non-fiction books in English, German, and Arabic as well as two novels in Arabic. Her latest book is Women and Shari’a Law – The impact of legal pluralism in the UK (I.B.Tauris, 2016). In addition to her position at the University of Zurich, she is a consultant for a number of Swiss government agencies and international human rights organisations. In 2010 the Swiss Federal Council appointed her as a Member of the Federal Commission for Women Affairs, a position she still holds today.