Luisa Cabal is a lawyer specialized in HIV, sexual and reproductive rights, human rights and gender equality. She joined UNAIDS in Geneva (Switzerland) in 2015 where she has worked as Head of the Human Rights and Gender Equality unit. From 2019 to 2020 she was Acting Director of the Department of Gender Equality, Human Rights and Community Mobilization. She led the programmes and the agenda for the promotion of human rights and equality in HIV and health related policies and programmes, as well as technical support to countries to ensure that HIV responses are grounded in human rights, reduction of inequities and gender inequalities. She has played a leadership role in the creation of the Global Partnership to End HIV-related Stigma and Discrimination, the Education Plus initiative, and the global collaboration to develop principles to limit the discriminatory use of criminal laws that affect the health and rights of marginalized communities.
Luisa has an extensive background in health and public policy. From 1998 to 2014, she worked at the Center for Reproductive Rights, as Vice President of Programmes and Director of Global Programmes. Under her leadership, human rights and health research, advocacy and strategic litigation to advance laws, policies, norms and jurisprudence related to sexual and reproductive rights were fostered at global, regional and national levels on four continents.
At the Center, she also designed and led the Latin America and Caribbean programme, where she implemented important programmes and collaborations that contributed to the development of laws, policies, programmes and human rights standards for the protection of human rights in the areas of HIV and sexual and reproductive rights. She co-founded the ALAS Network, a network of Latin American and Caribbean law professors working for over 15 years to integrate gender in legal education.
Prior to pursuing her masters in law at Columbia University in New York, she also worked at the governmental level in her native Colombia. Luisa speaks English, Spanish and French, is married and has two teenage daughters, Valentina and Paloma.
