Geertrui is also a teaching assistent at the Legal Clinic in the Ghent University, Faculty of Law and criminology since 2018. She studied Law in Ghent and Aix-en- Provence (2003) and holds an additional Master in Conflict and Development (2004).
After practicing three years as a lawyer specialized in migration and asylum law at the Antwerp Bar, Geertrui moved to Algeria (Algiers) where she worked for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as a Refugee Status Determination Officer for two years.
Afterwards, she took up short positions as a legal officer for the Flemish Refugee Action (Vluchtelingenwerk Vlaanderen) and the Belgian Refugee Council (now Nansen vzw). Geertrui was also an independent consultant for UNHCR Brussels and conducted, as a national expert for Belgium, research for the report “Safe at last”, a comparative study regarding requests for subsidiairy protection in the EU.
In 2011, she moved to Kenya (Nairobi) for one year, where she was employed as Resettlement Officer for UNHCR. Between 2012 and 2016, Geertrui Daem worked as a legal officer for the Belgian Refugee Council (now Nansen vzw) where she provided legal support to numerous asylum seekers.