Melissa Akhir is an access to justice consultant and human rights activist with 19 years of experience, specialising in child protection and gender-based violence prevention. Her work is grounded in evidence-based advocacy focusing on the intersections between gender and children’s rights. She has been actively involved in reforming Malaysia’s criminal laws to be more child survivor-centric and has designed multisectoral, life-cycle approaches to strengthen child protection systems across Southeast Asia.

She has extensive experience working with legal, civil society and feminist networks in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia. Her advocacy includes adapting CRC- and CEDAW-based frameworks into practical access to justice initiatives, advancing child participation, and promoting reformative justice mechanisms. She has also collaborated with public interest lawyers, human rights institutions and youth leaders to strengthen protection and accountability for children and vulnerable groups.

Melissa’s professional expertise covers human rights advocacy, safeguarding, legal feminist praxis, child protection, intergenerational movement-building and implementation of child participation - including work with migrant, refugee and stateless children. She has led numerous legal and policy reform efforts, facilitated high-level regional convenings, and conducted training for judges, parliamentarians, government agencies, CSOs and youth groups. Her recent engagements include input to Malaysia’s CRC review, legal reform on child witness laws, and sports safeguarding initiatives.

She holds an Advanced Master’s Degree in International Children’s Rights from Leiden University, the Netherlands, and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB Hons) from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia. Fluent in Malay and English, she also speaks conversational Indonesian and basic French.