University of Ulster graduate Sian Fisher has beaten off stiff international competition to win the prestigious Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission Dissertation prize for her work on child soldiers in Africa.

A graduate of the LLB in Law and Government, Sian, (22), from Ballyclare,  is now studying to be a barrister at the Institute of Professional Legal Studies in Belfast. She was both the youngest and first ever local student to win the prize. Her award winning dissertation on child soldering was also the first legal anthropological thesis submitted in the history of the university’s LLM course.

Sian said that while child soldiering is an issue in many areas of conflict around the world, she focussed on African countries and, in particular, Sierra Leone.

“Not only are child soldiers denied a childhood, but they are often directly involved in the conflict, subjected to horrific violence themselves and forced to carry out acts of violence on others, sometimes even to members of their own community. The dissertation looked at some of the many difficulties former child soldiers continue to face even if the conflict they are involved in is resolved.”

The prize is awarded annually for the Best Dissertation submitted for the LLM in Human Rights Law at Ulster's Transitional Justice Institute (TJI). The programme is taught at the Jordanstown and Magee campuses and hosts international and domestic students.

Sian’s dissertation was supervised by legal anthropologist Dr Kirk Simpson of the TJI, who said that it highlighted the inter-disciplinary nature of the TJI’s research. 

”We often talk about the success of our international students, and justifiably so, but it gives everyone at the TJI particular pleasure to know that from within a pool of talented UU and other local graduates we have found a student in Sian who has produced such a tremendous, award-winning legal anthropological piece of work.

“This shows the inter-disciplinarity that we really stress at the TJI and builds on the successes we have had in attracting research funding for this sort of work. Sian showed enormous dedication and character during the course of writing this dissertation and was a pleasure to supervise.”

Professor Colm Campbell, Professor of Law and Associate Director of the TJI, said:

“At the TJI, we work extremely hard to promote a culture of research excellence, which is reflected in the very notable achievements of many of our staff.  It is particularly impressive that a student on the Master's programme could not only produce work of such distinction, but that the work would make such an impressive, genuine and original theoretical contribution to the field of knowledge in this area. The success of the project is further evidence of the achievements of an interdisciplinary unit that strengthens legal analyses by drawing on insights from anthropology and related fields.”

Sian will receive her prize at the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in November. Monica McWilliams, Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, was extremely generous in her praise and support for both Sian and the TJI:

"The Human Rights Commission is pleased to be able to support students such as Sian and her innovative research on human rights in this practical way. We appreciate the close working relationship that has developed between the Commission and the Institute and its growing international research reputation, which Sian has so ably contributed to."

For further information, please contact:

David Young
Telephone: 028 90366074
Email: David Young