Rate My Professor Amira Aftab

Dr. Amira Aftab is a Senior Lecturer at Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University. She received her PhD in Law from Macquarie University on 19 April 2018. Her doctoral thesis, titled "Accommodating Sharia: A Feminist Institutionalist Analysis of Sharia law in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom," explored gender, religion, and state institutions in the context of Sharia debates in these countries under the supervision of Kate Gleeson. Prior to her appointment at Macquarie University, Aftab served as Senior Lecturer from 2023 to 2024 and Lecturer from July 2020 to 2023 at Western Sydney University. Her career reflects a commitment to legal scholarship at leading Australian institutions.

Aftab's research centers on the lived experiences of marginalised communities, with a focus on the gendered nature of institutions, particularly family law and family dispute resolution; gendered violence; human rights, including women's rights and SOGI rights; women’s agency; and the intersection of gender, culture, religion, and the law. She is Chief Investigator on a multi-institutional project funded by the James Martin Institute for Public Policy examining the impacts of COVID-19 on domestic and family violence service provision in New South Wales culturally and linguistically diverse and faith-based communities. Aftab also leads a project evaluating the help-seeking experiences of women on temporary visas who experience domestic and family violence, commissioned by Women's Legal Services Australia and in collaboration with Immigration Advice and Rights Centre. Key publications include "The contribution of Muslim Women Australia in the domestic and family violence space: victim-survivor perspectives from the COVID-19 pandemic" (Religions, 2024, with Balawyn Jones and Ghena Krayem); "Collateral damage: unfair dismissal as an invisible punishment for employees' criminal records" (University of Tasmania Law Review, 2024, with Sandra Noakes); "Navigating cultural and religious needs in family dispute resolution" (Routledge, 2024); "Australian Muslim women's experiences of domestic and family violence: the impact of faith" (Brill, 2026, with Balawyn Jones and Ghena Krayem); and "The sexual and gender-based violence challenge in Asia" (Asialink, 2025, with Hyein Ellen Cho). Aftab teaches units including Family Law, Criminal Justice, and Dispute Resolution Processes and Law. She serves as Senior Co-Chair of the Women and Girls’ Rights Subcommittee of Australian Lawyers for Human Rights and 2024 co-President of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Research Network.