Helen grew up in Birmingham, UK. Her professional life straddled two different worlds; that of academia and health care services in the United Kingdom, as well as working with conflict survivors of sexual and gender-based violence and torture in Africa, including refugee survivors.
Helen carries out research with survivors of conflict and post-conflict sexual and gender-based violence and has worked in Uganda, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, and South Africa. She has numerous journal publications and three books including her recently published autobiography (Liebling, 2023; Liebling & Baker, 2010; Liebling-Kalifani, 2009).
Helen’s PhD in Women and Gender led to a greater political and humane passion for women’s and survivors’ rights, particularly in the African continent. As well as being awarded with the Phil Strong prize for her PhD, she was presented with a research prize in Johannesburg in 2009 for an outstanding research presentation on her collaborative work with Women’s International Peace Centre in Uganda together with Liberian African women’s organisations on Liberian women conflict survivors.
