Afghan Women Bring Brussels Proclamation to the U.S.

Six delegates from the Afghan Women’s Summit, held in Brussels December 4-5, will meet with members of the U.S. House and Senate as well as the State Department to garner support for the Brussels Proclamation, the Summit’s plan for Afghan reconstruction. The delegates, hosted by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), will present the Proclamation to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today and attend a lunch meeting with other members of the Senate, hosted by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). The women also plan to meet with State Department officials this afternoon. Tomorrow, the delegates will brief members of the House on the Proclamation, which addresses education and culture, health, human rights, and refugees and internally displaced women.

The six delegates in the U.S. are Leila Enayat-Seraj, co-founder of the United Nations Committee on the Prevention of Discriminatory Practices Against Women, Safiqa Habibi, former Afghan broadcast journalist, Adeena Niazi, former professor at Kabul University and founder of an Afghan women’s group, Soraya Paikan, formerly with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Sahar Saba of the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan (RAWA), and Sima Wali, CEO of Refugee Women in Development and member of the Rome delegation to the United Nations’ sponsored talks in Bonn.

Media Resources: Equality Now; Feminist Majority

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