Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno

Guest Author

Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno (@MMcFarlandSM) is a Peruvian-American human rights advocate, author, and lawyer. Maria is now acting deputy program director at Human Rights Watch, overseeing the organization’s work on the Americas, economic justice, technology and human rights, global health, and digital investigations. She grew up in Peru during a time of internal armed conflict, economic crisis, and the autocratic government of President Alberto Fujimori, and later worked on Fujimori’s extradition and trial as an Americas researcher for Human Rights Watch. From 2017 to 2020, she served as the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the leading U.S.-based organization fighting to end the global war on drugs. Maria is the author of the award-winning narrative non-fiction book “There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia” (Bold Type Books, Feb. 2018). She is also on LinkedIn.