Activist, Refugee Advocate
South Sudan

Susan Grace Duku is an activist and refugee advocate. Having spent 21 years of her life as a refugee, she has worked to amplify the voices of refugees and displaced persons in decision making at the local, national, and international levels.

In 2017, Ms. Duku was elected as women’s representative to the highest refugee leadership body in Rhino Settlement, Arua District, Uganda. She is the Founder and Head of Refugee Women and Youth Aid (RWYA).

Since 2018, she has participated in Steering Group meetings of Uganda’s Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) as a Uganda Refugee Representative.

She frequently speaks at conferences, meetings, and dialogues, notably as a plenary session speaker at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Global Refugee Forum in 2019. In June 2019, she participated in the Dialogues with Refugee and Returnee Women and the Continental Commemorative Meeting (CCM) on the Implementation and Supervision of the 1969 OAU (Organization for African Unity) Refugee Convention. Ms. Duku was a UNHCR-selected panelist during discussions on the role of women in forced displacement at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in 2019.

She currently lives in Sweden under the UNHCR Resettlement Program but remains engaged in women empowerment efforts in Africa, especially in Uganda’s refugee camps and her country South Sudan.