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A Window of Hope:
Standing with Women in Iraq to End Violence

MADRE Spring 2007 Speaking Tour

April 16-23, 2007

Yanar Mohammed
Director, Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq

—with—

Vivian Stromberg
Executive Director, MADRE

Since the start of the US occupation of Iraq, Iraqi women have faced multiple forms of violence, including a sharp rise in abductions, rape, "honor killings," and attacks by US forces and US-allied militias seeking to impose an Islamist state.

The Baghdad-based Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) and MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, are working in partnership to combat gender-based violence in Iraq. Despite death threats and constant danger, the women of OWFI are standing up for women's rights. With MADRE, they founded Iraq's first women's shelters and the Underground Railroad for Iraqi Women, a support network to enable women to escape "honor killings." And OWFI is building real alternatives to civil war by bringing Sunni and Shiite youth together, using the arts as a tool to demand an end to the killing.

Hear directly from women on the frontlines of the struggle to end gender-based violence and create a secular, democratic Iraq free of both US occupation and Islamist coercion.

There is hope in Iraq.
Come meet the women who are creating it.

Tour Schedule

April 16, 7:30pm
Haehn Campus Center, Alum hall
College of St. Benedict
37 College Ave S
St Joseph, MN

April 17, 6pm
Ritsche Auditorium, Stewart Hall
St. Cloud State University
720 Fourth Avenue South
St. Cloud, MN

April 18, 4:30pm
Leighton Hall, Rm. 305
Carleton College
1 North College Ave
Northfield, MN

April 19, 7pm
450 Lindner Center
University of Cincinnati, Uptown Campus
2600 Clifton Ave.
Cincinnati, OH

April 23, 3:30pm
Theater Lobby
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
899 10th Ave
New York, NY

Speakers' Bios

Yanar Mohammed is the Director of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which works to end violence against Iraqi women and defend human rights. Since 2004, OWFI has founded a network of women's shelters in Baghdad, Kirkuk, Erbil, and Nasariyeh. The shelters offer Iraqi women an urgently needed haven from violence, as well as skill-building workshops, education, and leadership training to enable them to take an active role in rebuilding their country within a human rights framework. In 2006, in cooperation with the international women's human rights organization MADRE, OWFI organized the Underground Railroad for Iraqi Women, a support network of courageous individuals who work to enable women to escape family violence and begin a new life.

As director of OWFI and Editor-in-Chief of its newspaper, Al-Mousawat (Equality), Ms. Mohammad is internationally recognized as a key spokesperson for the rights of Iraqi women. Despite receiving numerous death threats from armed fundamentalist groups seeking to restrict Iraqi women's participation in public life, Ms. Mohammad continues to publicly oppose both religious coercion in her country and US occupation, and to encourage and empower other women to do the same.

Ms. Mohammed was trained as an architect, and graduated from Baghdad University with a Bachelor's Degree in 1984 and a Master's Degree in 1993.

Vivian Stromberg is the Executive Director and a founding Board Member of MADRE. Ms. Stromberg's areas of expertise include women's economic development, US foreign policy, healthcare, popular education, sexual violence, human rights, and child development. With an emphasis on gender in all areas of work, she speaks on a broad range of subjects, both in the United States and internationally, as a keynote speaker at conferences, seminars, and symposia.

As a MADRE representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, Ms. Stromberg has participated in numerous international conferences, such as the 1992 United Nations Conference on Human Rights in Vienna; the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and the NGO Women's Forum in Beijing, China; and the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2002. She was also an Expert-in-Residence for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 1994. She has received awards and recognition from the New York City Council, the Committee for a Democratic Palestine, Gloria Steinem Women of Vision, United Bronx Parents, and Haitian Women in Solidarity. She has been featured in print media, radio, television, and film, including Ms. Magazine, The Progressive, Working Mother, The Gay Financial Network, and CNBC.