Replies

The info is from the Wapo archives. I’m not sure if it’s available online.

veromi.com

ABEDIN, HUMA MAHMOOD (Age 32)
Available(3) Available WASHINGTON, DC
PINE BROOK, NJ Possible Relatives:

ABEDIN, SALEHA M
ABEDIN, HASSAN (Age 38)
ABEDIN, HEBA MAHMOOD

Possible Roommates / Associates:

KHALID, SUMAIRA (Age 33)
SYED, KHALID I (Age 65)

http://www.imma.org.uk/editorialboard.htm

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/boards/c-boards/jmm-edb.html

Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief:

Saleha S. Mahmood - Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs

Associate Editors:

S. Hassan Abedin - OCIS, Oxford University, UK
M. Hakan Yavuz - University of Utah, USA

Assistant Editors:

Huma Abedin
Heba A. Khalid
...

cont.

Muslim groups want motherhood stressed -
Criticize `selfish’ U.N. platform
The Washington Times
August 19, 1995
Author: George Archibald; THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Muslim groups from 55 countries yesterday announced a major lobbying campaign to get a proposed U.N. women’s platform rewritten in Beijing to uphold the role of mothers and not perpetuate “gender” wars.
Their effort could block adoption of a final document at the Fourth World Conference on Women Sept. 4-15 because U.N. rules require a consensus among all attending nations.

As written, a 121-page draft U.N. platform calling on governments throughout the world to give women statistical equality with men in the workplace and government appears to carry a “hidden agenda” that is anti-male and biased against strengthening traditional families, said Saleha S. Mahmood, director of the London-based Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, at a news conference at the National Press Club.

Mrs. Mahmood, also representing the Muslim World League based in Saudi Arabia and the Muslim NGO Caucus, said the groups are asking delegations from Islamic countries to insist on platform language that “celebrates” women’s roles as mothers in the context of their own religious and cultural values.

She said the platform places more value on a woman’s workplace roles than on raising children, which will worsen problems of youth crime and violence.

“It [the platform] recommends `responsible’ sexuality but does not mention marriage, which is the only known means of ensuring it; it demands more opportunities and services for single mothers and female heads of households, but does not seek measures that would keep the fathers home and the family together,” Mrs. Mahmood said.

She termed the platform “selfish and self-centered,” saying it was crafted by a “minority of women” in feminist groups who have garnered control of government and U.N. women’s programs.

Women representing pro-family and pro-motherhood positions were excluded from most delegations, except those of the Vatican and Muslim countries, she said. “They have no voices.”

Anisa Abd El-Fattah, head of the Washington-based National Association of Muslim Women, said families in the United States and other countries would suffer economically from the platform’s current focus designed to “free women from any religious or cultural barrier or ideology that restricts their availability for the workplace.”

“Why would women be targeted for increase into the work force?” she asked. “Women usually get menial jobs and are willing to accept small salaries.” By bringing as many women as men into the job market, “men will have to adjust their salary demands” downward, she said.

The U.N. platform, set to be finished in Beijing and adopted by delegations from more than 170 countries, has been drafted in a series of meetings over the past six months.

Objection from just one delegation requires platform language to be bracketed as in dispute and not binding in the final document.

The Muslim effort was supported yesterday by Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian group. Laurel Heiskell, the CWA’s legislative coordinator, said the group had initial problems getting U.N. accreditation to attend the conference but had no trouble obtaining Chinese visas.

David Johnson, the State Department’s deputy press spokesman, said yesterday that most Americans planning to attend the Beijing conference have not yet received visas. He said the U.S. government is pressing China to honor its commitment to speed up the process.

The Clinton administration, which has announced a 46-member delegation for the Beijing conference, supports the current focus of the women’s platform and is assembling its own list of “commitments” to implement hundreds of provisions calling for affirmative action and employment quotas for women.

(snip)