Neela Hassan

Neela Hassan is a Researcher for Youth in Focus, a collaborative project between the Neighbourhood Organization (TNO) and a research team based at CERC Migration. The objective of the project is to better understand the needs of youth living in the Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park neighborhoods and to identify what can be done by local organizations, such as TNO, to address these needs.

Neela is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo. Her SSHRC-funded dissertation project examines the intersection of domestic violence and immigration status, with a particular focus on the experiences of women with precarious immigration status. She is a former Fulbright Scholar, through which she earned her MA in Communications and Development Studies at Ohio University. Prior to migrating to Canada, Neela worked with various media organizations and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Recent Publications

(2024). Double jeopardy: Why Afghan women are caught in the political crossfirebetween the West and the Taliban. The Sociological Review Magazine [Online]. https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.bzsx9198 (external link) 

(2023). Why Parents Sent their Daughters to School: A Qualitative Study of Girls Schooling in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan in 2018. Afghanistan, 6(1), 29-48.

(2022). Canada’s half-open door: Why does a proudly ‘multicultural’ country have different policies for Afghan and Ukrainian refugees? The Sociological Review Magazine [Online]. https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.ljox7070 (external link) 

Commentary

(2021, 6 July). How Canada failed thousands of asylum-seekers during the pandemic (external link) . rabble.ca.

(2020, 30 April). Canada closed Roxham Road — the border crossing that saved my life (external link) . rabble.ca.

(2020). COVID-19 Will Widen the Gender Education Gap in Afghanistan (external link) . AfghanistanTimes.