Students gathered in the Barnum auditorium last night for a speech given by Layli Miller-Muro, an immigration-laws attorney and head of the Washington, DC-area based Tahiri Justice Center.
The speech, coordinated and sponsored by the University's Women's Center and the International Center, focused around the current state of women's rights throughout the world and the challenges facing women, such as mail-order brides and genital mutilation.
Miller-Muro also discussed what she saw as America's apathy and complacency while these injustices occurred around the world and even in the U.S.
"Humanity goes through different stages as it evolves, and right now I think we are in an adolescent kind of phase," Miller-Muro said. "In order to evolve into adulthood, we must first achieve perfect equality between men and women."
Layli spoke primarily from her personal experiences through her travels around the world. She spent time in Gambia, where she learned through local women the custom of genital mutilation. The custom had become so ingrained into the population that the women talked excitedly weeks before to prepare for the day of mutilation.
"Saying that the world should not take action about something like this because it is part of culture is ridiculous," she said. "Slavery was once a major part of American society, and France and Britain at different times were telling us it was very, very wrong."
The topic of conversation switched to mail-order brides coming into the U.S. from around the world. Many of them, Miller-Muro said, have gone through elaborate courtship arrangements with men in the U.S.
"When these women arrived in America, they found that these men turned out to be serial rapists or sexual predators. To make matters even worse, these women have nowhere to turn to since they aren't even legal citizens," she said.
Another problem entirely, Miller-Muro said, is that mail-order brides could gain temporary citizenship in only three months, while refugees from countries performing acts like genital mutilation could not enter the country for years, if at all.
Layli concluded the presentation with an optimistic outlook on the future of women's rights throughout the world, although movement is admittedly slow and sporadic. Casualties to women from acid injuries in Pakistan - where a part of culture includes pouring acid on a woman who rejects the man's marriage proposal - have risen in recent years.
But, this rise is due to the fact that more women are seeking indepence of thought and rejecting the forced relationships that have long been customary to their culture, Miller-Muro said.
"In order to achieve equality between men and women, two processes must occur. First, we must create laws that protect and support this equality. Secondly, and most importantly, we must transform hearts, attitudes and behaviors. We can have all the laws in the world but without attitude transformation it is worthless," she said.
Miller-Muro currently works as an attorney for a private firm in the greater Washington, DC area. She previously worked for the U.S. Department of Justice and focused on immigration law.
While in law school at American University in 1996, Layli met an young female immigrant from Togo who sought refugee status in the U.S. to escape the genital mutilation occurring in her native country. She worked to defend that girl, and her work became a groundbreaking precedent-setting case in the realm of immigration law in this country.
"I think [Miller-Muro's] comments about America's role in these problems were very controversial but very true," senior Deirdre Brodie said after the speech. "The majority of Americans don't travel enough and don't see how the rest of the world is. We have such a huge potential to change the world we should start taking advantage of that potential."
