Funke Adeoye

Oluwafunke Adeoye (popularly known as Funke Adeoye) is a Nigerian lawyer, human rights defender, and social innovator.
 She is the founder and executive director of Hope Behind Bars Africa, an organization that promotes human rights and criminal justice reforms using legal aid, research, evidence based advocacy and tech.

Funke pioneered Made in Corrections, a social enterprise aimed at preventing recidivism by empowering incarcerated women and young persons in Nigeria.

Early life
Adeoye was born in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, but she grew up in Lagos. She holds an LLB from University of Benin and has attended two flagship programs for non-profit leaders at Lagos Business School (LBS) and masters in International Human Rights Law at University of Oxford.

Career
Adeoye started as a legal associate at Olumide Sofowora SAN Chambers. She transited into the social justice space when she moved to Abuja and began volunteering for Amnesty International.

She founded Hope Behind Bars Africa in 2018, an organization that provides free legal services and direct support to indigent individuals in contact with the criminal justice system while promoting reforms through research, evidence-based advocacy and technology.  Over 7,000 justice-involved individuals has benefitted from their interventions. She has championed several campaigns including the campaign to decriminalize poverty.

Funke facilitated the capacity development training of over 300 grassroots organizations on regulatory compliance. She also engaged the Upper Chamber of Nigeria’s parliament on the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020, a legislation that could impact negatively on the civic space.

In 2021, after the ban on Twitter by the Nigerian government, she led the campaign at ECOWAS Court to uplift the ban.

She co-authored “Legal Representation for Indigent Pre-trial Detainees” that gained recognition from Federal Ministry of Justice and Legal Aid Council.

Awards and Recognition

She is a 2019 LEAP Africa Social Innovation Fellow, a 2022 CivicHive fellow and a One Young World Ambassador. She is also a (TFAA ) Future Africa Finalist for Advocacy, a  100 Leading Ladies Africa Honoree and a 2023 Acumen West Africa Fellow. She won the Dragons Den Prize at Unleash Plus Innovation Bootcamp in Mysore, India.

In 2023, she won Global Citizen Prize and was selected for the prestigious Mandela Washington Fellowship and was listed by Attic London as one of the lawyers changing the world for the better in 2020.

In 2025, Adeoye received the International Bar Association (IBA) Outstanding Young Lawyer Award at the IBA Annual Conference in Toronto, Canada, for her exceptional contributions to access to justice, human rights advocacy, and legal technology through Hope Behind Bars Africa.

Personal life

Funke’s Christian faith positively impacts on her zeal to fight for incarcerated persons. She lives in Abuja, Nigeria, with her husband and two sons.

References

External Links
 Hope Behind Bars Africa on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hope_Behind_Bars_Africa 
 Official website of Hope Behind Bars Africa https://hopebehindbarsafrica.org/

Category:Living people
Category:1992 births
Category:Nigerian activists
Category:Nigerian lawyers