Tina Power • ALT Advisory | Make. Change. Possible.

Associate Director – JHB.

TINA POWER.

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Est. 2017. JHB – CPT – NBO.

Tina is an Associate Director at ALT Advisory and a public interest lawyer, researcher, and strategist.

Tina's overview

Tina's recent work

PUBLIC LAW & POLICY

Developing laws and policies that empower people, promote human rights, and enable a sustainable and resilient future.

STRATEGY & FUNDRAISING

Supporting civil society organisations and social enterprises with registration, strategy, structuring, and fundraising.

AI & EMERGENT TECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA

Safeguarding and promoting human rights in the development of artificial intelligence and emergent technologies.

EQUALITY & INCLUSION

Working to foster substantive equality, meaningful inclusion, and the best interests of children.

INTERNATIONAL LAW & DEVELOPMENT

Promoting multilateralism, development, participation, and activism at the regional and international levels.

STRATEGIC & TEST CASE LITIGATION

Enabling changes in laws, policies, and administrative systems which are beneficial to the public, in association with Power & Associates Inc. *

INFORMATION RIGHTS & DATA GOVERNANCE

Protecting and promoting privacy, free speech, and access to information on- and offline.

CLIMATE JUSTICE & SUSTAINABILITY

Building climate-resilience through digital transformation and climate and environmental justice.

WEB DEVELOPMENT & HOSTING

Assisting civil society organisations and social enterprises to tell their story, enhance their reach, and get connected.

ABOUT TINA.

Overview
Tina is an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa and an Associate Director at Power & Associates. She holds B.A., LL.B., and LL.M. in Human Rights Advocacy and Litigation degrees from the University of Witwatersrand. She is currently completing a Master’s degree in International Human Rights Law at Oxford University.

Tina has experience in human rights advocacy, research and training with a focus on public law and policy, access to justice, children’s rights, online harms reduction, the promotion of gender equality and non-discrimination, free expression and privacy online, as well as questions relating to digital equality.

She has contributed towards research, policy reform, and training, in domestic, regional, and international contexts, having worked on various projects in over 25 countries. She has extensive experience in gender crafting gender action plans, and regularly consults to various UN agencies on issues relating to equality and inclusion, both on and offline.

Tina has worked closely with victims and survivors of GBV and CSOs working on gender rights, as well as activists, journalists and international institutions and various UN agencies and UN mandate holders.

Before joining Power & Associates, Tina received the Section27-Students for Law and Social Justice Fellowship where she worked on matters relating to the right to basic education (2016). Thereafter, Tina completed her articles of clerkship at the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg (2017-18) as a Bertha Foundation Justice Fellow working on constitutional law matters. Following her articles, Tina clerked at the Constitutional Court of South Africa (2019, Justice Nonkosi Mhlantla). Tina presently also acts as an Associate Director at Power & Associates.
Professional Affiliations
Attorney of the High Court of South Africa, (with Right of Appearance) admitted on 10 March 2020.

Member of the Legal Practice Council (Membership Number: 47754).
Academic Qualifications
MSc in International Human Rights Law candidate (University of Oxford)

A., LL.B. (with Distinction), LL.M. in Human Rights Advocacy and Litigation (University of the Witwatersrand).

Children’s Human Rights – An Interdisciplinary Introduction, MOOC (University of Geneva).
Judicial Clerkships
Justice Nonkosi Mhlantla at the Constitutional Court of South Africa (2019).
Recent Publications & Presentations
Academic

T Power & S Khumalo ‘The emergence of online harms: towards innovative and meaningful responses to online gender-based violence in higher education’ South African Journal on Human Rights (forthcoming).

A Singh & T Power, ‘Understanding the privacy rights of the African child in the digital era’, (2021) 21(1) African Human Rights Law Journal 99-125.

Media articles

T Power, ‘New law protects women against online abuse,’ (22 February 2022).

T Power, ‘Know your reproductive rights’ (2022).

W Bird and T Power, ‘Constitutional Court to hear key case on rights of the visually impaired to access copyrighted works’ (May 2022) Daily Maverick.

T Power, ‘Connected girls creating brighter futures: Reflections on current realities’ (2021).

Books and research reports

T Power, ‘The Gender Digital Divide and COVID-19: Towards feminist internet regulations in Southern Africa’ African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms Coalition (2020).

Co-Author, Guruli et al., ‘Access Denied: Internet Access and the Right to Education in South Africa’ Report (29 September 2020).

Contributor, Basic Education Handbook, SECTION27 and others (2017).

Presentations

Facilitated a session at the Conference on Information and Communication Rights in Africa, co-hosted by Fesmedia Africa and the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (2023).

Presented at the Internet Governance Forum on the intersection of gender and disinformation (2022).

Presented at the Centre for Human Rights Webinar on children’s rights to privacy in the digital sphere in Africa (2021).

Presented at the Stockholm Internet Forum 2021 on COVID-19 and the gender-digital divide in Sub-Saharan Africa (2021).

Presented at the Lancaster University Law Conference 2021 on Law in the Transforming World focusing on AI and Gender-Based Violence (2021).

Presented MMA and Goethe-Institute workshop on digital citizens (2021).

Presented at MozFest, 2021 on AI and Gender-Based Violence (2021).

Presented at the University of Johannesburg Department of Sociology, Anthropology and

Development Studies on LGBTQI+ identities: challenges and possibilities – Freedom of (sexual) expression online – is content moderation an ally or an enemy? (2021).
Recent Projects
Team-lead: consultancy developing and delivering training for the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme to Eliminate FGM on the deployment Humanitarian- Development Nexus approach (2023-24).

Team lead: conducting a Gender Programmatic Review for the South Africa UNICEF country office (2023-24).

Developing a training manual for policy and law reform and strategic litigation in Ethiopia and Sudan to build the capacity of women lawyers and activists across the East and the Horn of Africa (2023-24).

Team-lead: consultancy assessing CSOs partnered with UNICEF and UNFPA to support a gender transformation approach to ending child marriage including the development of developed structural and substantive markers for an assessment tool (2022-23).

Developing and refining training manuals and an online resource hub for practising lawyers in East, West, and Southern Africa on behalf of Media Defence, inclusive of modules on online violence, digital attacks, and practical approaches to combatting Online Violence Against Women Journalists.

Developing a digital rights strategic litigation toolkit which contains tools, resources, and systems to assist and guide digital rights litigators in managing their cases from conception to finalisation (2022)

As an attorney, through the partner law firm, Power & Associates, representing CSOs and a GBV survivor in constitutional litigation around the legal framing of consent in the context of sexual violence in South Africa and contributing to the development of gender-based violence laws in South Africa.

Conducting research on the status of children’s privacy rights in South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda for the Centre Human Right’s study on children’s rights to privacy in the digital sphere in the African region (2021).

Conducting research for EndGBV to identify legislative and policy gaps across Sub-Saharan African in dealing with GBV, both on- and offline (ongoing).

Developing another first-of-its-kind online platform providing accessible resources to victims and survivors of online gender-based violence and sexual harassment in South Africa (ongoing).

Working with the Centre for Human Rights to conduct a study assessing the impact of laws in addressing VAW in Cabo Verde, Gabon, and Mozambique to inform policy recommendations (2022).

Conducting a Gender Analysis and Gender Action Plan alongside GIZ for the Joint Labour Migration Program (JLMP), a joint programme of the African Union Commission (AUC), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) (2021).
Contact Tina

33%

Percentage of annual profits allocated to pro bono and public interest projects.

200+27

Number of successfully completed advisory projects in 27 jurisdictions since 2017.

4000+

Number of collective pro bono and public interest hours in 2023.

Learn more about our impact

TINA’S RECENT WORK.

Ongoing projects
Undertaking an assessment of CSOs partnered with UNICEF to support a gender transformation approach to ending child marriage.

Developing a first-of-its-kind online platform providing accessible resources to victims and survivors of online gender-based violence and sexual harassment.

Working with the Centre for Human Rights to conduct a study assessing the impact of laws in addressing gender-based violence across African countries.

Preparing a training module for journalists on reporting on children in the media.
Previous projects
Collaborating on a gender analysis of digital transformation in South Africa.

Preparing a gender analysis and action plan to mainstream gender in the Joint Labour Migration Programme for Africa.

Preparing two joint written submissions on the proposed Domestic Violence Amendment Bill to South Africa’s National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces, with Research ICT Africa (RIA), Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), and Feministing while African.

Preparing an in-depth research report on the the legal status of children’s right to privacy in South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Developing a strategic digital rights litigation toolkit for the Digital Freedom Fund (DFF).

Drafting a written submission to the Minister of Home Affairs on the Official Identity Management Policy for the Right2Know Campaign.

Preparing a research report reviewing the security, privacy, and inclusion implications of Covid-19 tracing apps in South Africa.

Assisting the Equal Education with information governance and regulatory compliance in terms of South Africa’s Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).

Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) by facilitating consultations and public participation on the revised Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation.

Preparing an article for the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms (AfDec) Coalition on the need for feminist internet regulations in Southern Africa..

Preparing a written submission on behalf of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) on the revised draft General Comment No. 37 on Article 21 (right to peaceful assembly) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.