Luísa V. Barbosa is a Brazilian qualified lawyer who joined IDC as Global Advocacy Advisor in 2025. She supports IDC’s work at the global and regional levels, engaging with other civil society organisations, United Nations agencies and mechanisms and government representatives, aiming to promote alternatives to detention and ultimately advocate for ending immigration detention altogether.

Luísa has extensive experience in international law and human rights, having completed her LLM on the topic at the Geneva Graduate Institute in 2023. She also specialises academically on the intersection between children’s rights and migration. Before joining IDC, Luísa worked at the UNHCR HQ Division of International Protection, engaging with asylum and migration, immigration and refugee detention issues, trafficking in persons and protection at sea. She was also a consultant with the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (Sanremo Institute), and interned at OHCHR – Special Procedures Branch and with the NGO Geneva International Centre for Justice. In Brazil, she worked as a lawyer and provided legal advice to migrants and refugees in the city of São Paulo. She also interned at the Court of Infancy and Youth in Brazil, working directly with unaccompanied refugee children arriving in São Paulo.