Editor of The Daily Beast Tina Brown, who has long been involved with Vital Voices, announced the first annual Women in the World summit on February 17. The three-day summit will “showcase leaders on the frontlines working on innovative solutions to challenges ranging from sex slavery to girls’ education in the developing world to women caught in the violence of war zones.”

On the opening night of the summit, Meryl Streep will join fellow Academy Award winning actress Shohreh Aghdashloo and five other critically acclaimed actresses to stage a reading of SEVEN, the documentary play produced by Vital Voices that tells the stories of seven remarkable women in our network. This production is graciously being led by renowned director Julie Taymor.

Read about the summit on The Daily Beast.

We recently ended the Swedish tour of SEVEN in the Hague in the Netherlands. It was a wonderful final to a year of so many meaningful meetings, reactions, actions in response to the testimonies in SEVEN.

We were invited by the Swedish Embassy to open the conference Women in Warzones, an international conference arranged jointly with the Dutch government.

We decided early on that for this occasion we would put together an international ensemble of actors, and with the help of the Swedish embassy and the contacts of Riksteatern we ended up with actors hailing from Sweden, Great Britain, Palestine, Iran/US, the Netherlands and Kamerun/Russia. Continue Reading »

On October 27, Vital Voices held a roundtable discussion, featuring Mukhtar Mai, on women’s rights in Pakistan and the work of the Mukhtar Mai Women’s Welfare Organization. After surviving a brutal gang rape by four assailants, the punishment for the crime allegedly committed by her brother when he held hands with a girl of a higher caste, Mukhtar says she felt it was necessary to help others in similar situations because, she says, “when you experience hardship and do not get help it makes the experience that much more difficult to live through.” Her case reached international prominence when highlighted by New York Times columnist and author Nicholas Kristof, who wrote of Mai’s near unprecedented decision to prosecute her rapists. Mukhtar was recognized by Vital Voices in 2006 with the Fern Holland award and her story is among those featured in the play Seven.

In order to benefit the community, Mukhtar established the Mukhtar Mai Women’s Welfare Organization. The organization’s services include a free legal help clinic, two schools for girls, a shelter for abused women, and a telephone helpline service. Through these avenues as well as others, Mai and her staff are able to educate six hundred girls, provide assistance to over one thousand female victims of violence, and support the local school for boys.

Over the past two years, the Mukhtar Mai Women’s Welfare Organization has partnered with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in order to build the organization’s capacity as well as providing technical assistance. Kristin Kim Bart, a member of the IRC team working with Mukhtar, describes how she sees Mukhtar:

“Mukhtar and [her colleague] Nasim [are] visionaries who were able to see dreams and formulate their projects into monuments.”

Though Mukhtar has faced a number of death threats as a result of her advocacy, she remains determined to follow through on her promises to help the her community and sees no sacrifice as too costly in the fight for women’s human rights.

September 10 – U.S. House of Representatives, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Rayburn Building Room 2200 1-3 PM - Mu Sochua, Cambodian Parliamentarian, human rights advocate and Vital Voices Global Leadership Award Honoree appears before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission as a witness in a hearing entitled, ‘Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Cambodia’.

As international governments, news agencies, and UN rights experts including the Special Rapporteur on the independence of lawyers and judges have recently reported, there is concern in Cambodia regarding attempts to curtail the rights and freedoms of lawyers, journalists, and members of the political opposition.

A 2008 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report indicates that Cambodian government enforcement of certain laws has been selective, and The Washington Post reported on July 29 that “a heightened crackdown on journalists and opposition activists… has provoked new concern that the government is engaging in widespread abuse of the nation’s legal system to muzzle its detractors.” In addition, the June 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report released by the U.S. Department of State, ranks Cambodia as a Tier 2 Watch List nation, marking a regression from the previous year’s ranking that indicates efforts to combat human trafficking have not been adequate or proven effective. Cambodia is a source, transit and destination country for victims of human trafficking for the purpose of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.

Parliamentarian and opposition party member Mu Sochua will present testimony on the condition of human rights and the rule of law in her native Cambodia from the perspective of a lawmaker and internationally recognized advocate for equal rights and democracy.

The hearing will take place in Room 2200 in the Rayburn House Office Building from 1-3 pm on September 10.

Continue Reading »

September 15 marks the United Nation’s International Day of Democracy. In celebration of this date in Sweden, the Riksteatern theatre group and the University of Stockholm will present a performance of “SEVEN” on September 14.

The play celebrates women’s rights, democracy and global progress. The seven women portrayed in the play include Nigerian human rights advocate, Hafsat Abiola, Afghani peace builder, Farida Azizi, Guatemalan congresswoman, Annabella De Leon, Russian domestic violence fighter, Marina Pisklakova-Parker, Pakistani women’s rights leader, Mukhtar Mai, Irish social justice leader, Inez McCormack, and Cambodian member of parliament and human trafficking combatant, Mu Sochua.

The distinguished playwrights include Anna Deavere Smith, Ruth Margraff, Gail Kriegel, Paula Cizmar, Susan Yankowitz, Carol K. Mack, and Catherine Filloux.