Yasmine Motarjemi

Motarjemi studied chemistry and biology at the Claude-Bernard University in Lyon and food industry techniques at the University of Montpellier, before doing PhD studies in food technology at the University of Lund. She then worked as a research assistant at the same university.^{[citation needed]}

In 1990, she joined the World Health Organisation in Geneva, where she became a scientific expert and Director of Food Security and Food Aid. From 2000, as Corporate Food Safety Manager and Assistant Vice-President, she became responsible for food safety at Nestlé's headquarters in Vevey.^{[citation needed]}

In 2003, following a complaint from parents, she wanted to withdraw from the market baby biscuits manufactured by the multinational .^[1] From 2006 onwards, she called for an audit on the toxicity of baby products.

In 2009, a large-scale food poisoning of melamine-contaminated milk incident causing kidney disease affected 300,000 babies in China, 13 of whom died.^[2] The director of the offending products was promoted and became her manager. He took away her responsibilities and relegated her to menial tasks.^[3] In 2010, she was fired. In March 2011, she filed a complaint against Nestlé with the court of the canton of Vaud for moral and psychological harassment.^[4] By a judgement of 7 January 2020, the civil court of appeal recognised the grounds for harassment and that she had been intimidated in an "insidious manner".^[5][6][7] In 2023, Nestlé withdrew its appeal, and the company had to pay 2 million Swiss francs, 100,000 francs for legal costs and a symbolic 1 symbolic franc for moral damages.^[2]

In 2019, she received the GUE/NGL Award for Journalists, Whistleblowers and Defenders of the Right to Information.^[8]

Motarjemi was nominated for the Prix Courage 2020 by the Swiss magazine Beobachter, a prize that honours and promotes personalities "who fight fearlessly and with dedication for an idea - for an open, united and fair Switzerland".^[9]

• (Co-editor) Encyclopedia on Food Safety, Academic Press, 2014^[10]
• Ce que l'empire Nestlé vous cache, Ed Robert Laffont, (in French), 2025, ISBN 978-2221279250^[11]