Fulfilling a dream to work in the Middle East
Even while still in high school, Te Herenga Waka law alumna Natasha Sax knew she wanted to work in the aid sector and had a strong interest in the Middle East.
Fast forward to 2025 and she is fulfilling that teenage ambition, working for international medical aid organisation Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF), based in Jordan.
Natasha’s dedication to helping others was evident from a relatively early age. “When I was in my last years of school in Auckland, I trained as a phone counsellor. I did Kidsline phone counselling and later volunteered for Youthline too,” she says. “That experience showed me how meaningful it is to support others. So many people are facing really tough situations—if there’s anything we can do to alleviate that, even in a small way, I believe we should.”
When deciding where to attend university, Natasha came to an Open Day at Te Herenga Waka, where she met with a career adviser who suggested that law could be a useful starting point for a career in social justice. “It turned out to be excellent advice,” she says. “I always knew I never wanted to be a lawyer in the more traditional sense of practising law—it was always for another purpose.”
Natasha says for her, studying at Te Kauhanganui Tātai Ture was perfect. “At Victoria’s Faculty of Law, students are encouraged to think critically, and are pushed to be able to express and articulate their views,” she says.
“A lot of the professors there have a strong social justice orientation, too—they’re not just focused on the academic aspects of the law, but also how the profession can contribute to the greater good of society.”
Natasha Sax
After graduating in December 2013 with a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Politics and International Relations, Natasha went to Scotland to do a Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of St Andrews. That led to a fellowship at Heartland Alliance International, a small human rights organisation based in Northern Iraq.
“While I was there, ISIS took over parts of Iraq and overnight it turned into a massive humanitarian crisis,” she says. “So my work shifted from the human rights space into humanitarian efforts—I was helping run a protection centre that was helping to support refugees and people who were being displaced by ISIS as they took over the country.”
Natasha says while some of the things she saw there were truly awful, what she has taken from that time are positive memories. “I worked with really amazing Iraqi colleagues who were on the front line dealing with some horrific situations—my role was to support them. My law background came into play as I was working with Iraqi lawyers who were helping refugees and displaced people to make sure they had correct documentation, such as birth or marriage certificates.”
While the work was at times harrowing, Natasha had to learn ways to minimise the personal toll it took on her. “You have to develop your own coping mechanisms—you need to know how to recognise when you’re exhausted, when you need to pull back, and when you actively need to take self-care,” she says. “For me I would normally come back to New Zealand every year for a break, which I was very lucky to be able to do. Coming back to New Zealand is really restorative because for me it’s a very peaceful place, connecting with family and friends, and grounding myself.”
Natasha started working in Baghdad, in Iraq’s south, around the time of the battle to retake Mosul after it was taken over by ISIS. “That conflict was extremely violent and there were a lot of violations of international humanitarian law—I realised that was an area of law I wanted to learn more about as it is critical for the protection of civilians during armed conflict.”
So Natasha went back to university and did a Masters in International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Essex. That led to time in Lebanon doing protection work, primarily with Syrian refugees. In 2022 she was hired by MSF in her current role, based in Amman in Jordan.
“I work in a small unit of MSF’s legal department that focuses on international humanitarian law (IHL)—essentially this is the legal framework applied during armed conflict and has specific legal protections for the wounded and sick, and also for medical facilities and medical personnel,” she says. “For the work MSF does, it’s obviously really important that we understand and know this legally protective framework inside out.”
Natasha says a lot of the work of humanitarian lawyers is advocating towards parties to conflict, to push them to uphold this body of law. “When we witness firsthand the medical consequences of attacks impacting civilians and medical facilities, we need to be able to engage with parties to the conflict to address this. So a lot of my work is helping MSF teams to understand international humanitarian law, and support how we operationalise it in practice.”
Throughout her nearly 10 years in the Middle East, Natasha has dedicated herself to learning the Arabic language. “It’s been a long-term goal of mine—I’m working on my Arabic alongside my very busy work schedule, so it’s a bit of a struggle but I’m slowly chipping away at it.”
Unsurprisingly, the conflict in Gaza has been a large part of Natasha’s work, and that of MSF more widely. “It’s been very intense. Since October 7th [2023] it’s been a massive focus of our work because of the huge impact on the civilian population. It’s been a very IHL-heavy context, with a lot of attacks on healthcare,” she says. “The healthcare system in Gaza has been absolutely decimated, and there have also been a lot of security incidents for humanitarian workers on the ground there, so there’s a lot of engagement and advocacy for us to do.”
Natasha helped author an MSF report on the extent of the damage the conflict has wrought on Gaza’s health system.
“The report is essentially on the destruction of the healthcare system in Rafah, and the risk of violations of international humanitarian law. The report is called ‘Gaza’s Silent Killings’—it highlights how without access to medical care, thousands more lives will be lost, beyond those killed in the Israeli bombardments seen in the news. It’s not an easy read but it’s important, and we take a strong stance on the protection of civilians, medical care, and for the resumption of a durable ceasefire.”
She says the Gaza conflict poses some serious questions about the role of international humanitarian law.
“I would say it’s been a bit of a depressing time—it’s the type of conflict that leads many people to ask whether international humanitarian law is still relevant or protective when it’s being breached to the extent it has been in Gaza and other modern conflicts,” says Natasha. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done in making sure that we don’t allow these norms to be completely eroded as they are essential to protect medical facilities, patients, and humanitarians. They are such important norms and we have to keep fighting for them.”
Natasha says she takes great comfort in knowing her family and her home country are just a (somewhat lengthy) plane ride away. “My family are very supportive of what I do. There have definitely been times when I have caused them a bit of worry—sorry, Mum!—but in the main they accept that I’m doing a job that I love and that I’m passionate about, and that is incredibly meaningful to me.”