Durban’s Jeeoshni gets job at ICC
FROM flight attendant to the legal advisory department of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a Durban woman has it all in the bag, with the ultimate goal of making gender equality a reality.
Jeeoshni Moodley Mazzuoccolo, 31, has begun serving an internship at the office of the prosecutor in the legal advisory section of the ICC.
The court is an intergovernmental tribunal which sits in The Hague, the Netherlands, and has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for international crimes against humanity.
As the country celebrates Women’s Month, Moodley revealed her story of working between countries while studying law through Unisa – excelling at every turn, but only to find that having women in leadership positions is not common.
“There is always this fear in society in allowing women to become leaders and I see myself as a lawyer who wants to make a difference in the world,” she said.
Her mother, Dr Savy Moodley, would tell her about the struggles in the workplace where, despite academic achievements and long-term service, she was never appointed to a senior management post because of the preference for males and nepotism. Moodley aims to change this.
“As a feminist, I want to manifest the words of ‘equality’ into a reality. I also care about a variety of legal issues that affect the world. I would like to contribute towards a positive change,” she said.
Over several years, Moodley worked as a flight attendant for the South African Airways while studying through Unisa, making it difficult for her to attend tutorials.
“When I felt like giving up, my late father would say ‘nothing can be achieved in life without a struggle, but the end results are worth it’.”
The LLB graduate caught the eye of Giovanni Mazzuoccolo, a software developer from Tuscany in Italy.
The pair married earlier this year in a fairytale wedding that spanned two continents, with ceremonies in Tuscany and Durban.
It was Mazzuoccolo and Moodley’s mother who encouraged her to apply for the internship.
Her application essay, requiring extensive research on international human rights law, focused on Sudanese president Omar al-bashir, for whom the ICC has issued a warrant of arrest following accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
She began serving her internship earlier this year, and found she was the only South African in the office.
For Moodley, as her late father, Raymond, told her; the end result was well worth it.