Cheryl Thomas is an attorney and director of the Women's Human Rights Program, a program she founded at The Advocates for Human Rights in 1993. Since 1994, she has traveled in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Morocco to work with local groups and individuals to promote women's human rights. She has published articles and reports on violence against women as a human rights abuse. in 2008 and 2009she participated as an expert in a U.N. Expert Group Meeting on good practices in legislation on violence against women. Ms. Thomas was named one of 150 "Women Who Shake the World" by Newsweek in 2011 for her work with local partners around the world writing laws that better protect women and girls.