Formation | 1997 |
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Founder | Layli Miller-Muro |
Founded at | United States |
Type | Non-governmental organization |
54-1858176 | |
Headquarters | Falls Church, Virginia, United States |
Products | Legal services, public policy advocacy. |
Services | Protecting human rights and refugee women |
Website | www |
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Violence against women |
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The Tahirih Justice Center, or Tahirih, is a national charitable non-governmental organization headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, United States, that aims to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence and persecution. Tahirih's holistic model combines free legal services and social services case management with public policy advocacy, training and education.
Since its founding in 1997, Tahirih has answered more than 30,000 pleas for help from individuals seeking protection from human rights abuses, such as female genital cutting, domestic violence, human trafficking, torture and rape.
Tahirih is inspired by principles of the Baháʼí Faith, including the belief that equality between women and men is necessary for peace and unity in society. [1] The organization is named after Táhirih, an influential female poet and theologian in 19th-century Persia who campaigned for women's rights. [2]
Layli Miller-Muro founded the Tahirih Justice Center in 1997 following the Matter of Kasinga, a landmark asylum case in which Miller-Muro was involved as a law student. [3]
At the age of 17, Fauziya Kassindja fled her origin country of Togo and sought asylum in the United States to escape a forced polygamous marriage and imminent female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). [4] She went through Ghana and Germany before arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, where she immediately requested asylum. Kassindja was detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) until 1996. Although an Immigration Judge initially found Kassindja "excludable as an intending immigrant, denied her applications for asylum and withholding of deportation, and ordered her excluded and deported from the United States" in 1995, Kassindja was unanimously granted asylum in June 1996 by the Board of Immigration Appeals, setting national precedent and establishing gender-based persecution as grounds for seeking asylum in the U.S. Following the case, Kassindja and Miller-Muro co-authored a memoir, published by Random House, titled Do They Hear You When You Cry (1998). [5]
Spurred by the widespread media coverage of Kassindja's case, the United States Congress passed legislation to define female genital mutilation/cutting on a minor as a federal criminal offense, which went into effect on March 30, 1997. [6]
After discovering that few organizations offered legal assistance to women seeking asylum or refugee status in the Washington, D.C. area, Miller-Muro founded the Tahirih Justice Center to build on the accomplishments of Matter of Kasinga and to provide free legal services to immigrant women and girls fleeing to the U.S. from gender-based violence. [7] In 1998, Tahirih hired its first paid staff to represent women seeking asylum from gender-based persecution.
In 1999, Tahirih litigated the Matter of Adeniji, a precedent-setting decision that clarified that mandatory detention provisions contained in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 could not apply retroactively. [8]
During this period, Tahirih launched its Public Policy Advocacy Program and began offering in-house social services case management to its clients.
In 2000, Tahirih advised the U.S. State Department in the conceptual development of legislation that became the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which established new visas for victims of trafficking (T visas) and victims of serious crimes (U visas). [9] As a result, Tahirih began representing survivors of human trafficking and working closely with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to ensure compliance with the distribution of T and U and visas.
In 2001, Tahirih launched the Campaign to Prevent Abuse and Exploitation through the International Marriage Broker (IMB) Industry to address the abuse of so-called "mail-order brides". Alongside law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, Tahirih successfully litigated Fox v. Encounters International in 2004, a case that marked the first time in the United States that an IMB had been held liable for negligent conduct that put a woman at serious risk in an abusive relationship and kept her in danger by misleading her as to her legal options. [10]
Drafted by Tahirih, the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 (IMBRA) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush as part of the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act. [Public Law 1] IMBRA enabled foreign women to receive critical information before marrying men through these agencies, as it "requires that the U.S. Government provide foreign fiancé(e)s and spouses immigrating to the U.S. information about their legal rights as well as criminal or domestic violence histories of their U.S. citizen fiancé(e)s and spouses". [Public Law 1]
During this period, Tahirih expanded its services and field office locations, beginning to offer family law representation and opening its first satellite offices in Houston, Texas and Baltimore, Maryland.
In 2008, Tahirih filed an amicus brief for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Barry v. Mukasey, [11] arguing that FGM/C can cause permanent and continuing harm to women who are forced to undergo the procedure, often leading to ongoing health issues. [12] Barry was denied asylum as a direct result of the Board of Immigration Appeals decision in Matter of A-T-, where the court held that past FGM/C alone cannot provide a basis for a fear of future persecution, [13] [14] and Matter of A-K-, where the court held that a parent cannot receive derivative asylum to protect a United States citizen child from FGM/C. [15]
In 2009, Tahirih released a report titled Precarious Protection: How Unsettled Policy and Current Laws Harm Women and Girls Fleeing Persecution, which addressed the gaps in gender-based asylum protection and how women and girls are especially impacted by current immigration laws and policies for asylum seekers, including expedited removal, mandatory detention, and the one-year filing deadline. [16] Following the release of this report, Tahirih worked with congressional representatives to introduce the Restoring Protection for Victims of Persecution Act in 2010, a bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the one-year filing deadline for applications for asylum in the U.S. However, the bill was not enacted. [17]
With provisions to strengthen the protections for women and girls fleeing gender-based persecution drafted by Tahirih, the Refugee Protection Act of 2010 was introduced to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act and reaffirm the United States commitment to protecting refugees and asylum-seekers fleeing persecution in their home countries, although this bill was not enacted. [18]
Continuing its expansion, Tahirih opened an office in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Atlanta.
In 2011, Tahirih conducted the first-ever national survey on forced marriage in immigrant communities in the United States, which documented as many as 3,000 cases of forced marriage in the U.S. over a two-year period. [19] In response to the results of the survey, Tahirih launched its Forced Marriage Initiative and National Network to Prevent Forced Marriage.
Tahirih began its campaign to end child marriage in the United States with the aim of changing state laws that make child marriage legal and fail to protect minors from "forced marriage, human trafficking, and statutory rape disguised as marriage". [20] In 2016, Tahirih drafted and advocated for the bipartisan passage of SB 415 / HB 703, a bill that made Virginia the first state in the country to limit marriage to legal adults, meaning individuals over the age of 18 or court-emancipated 16- or 17-year-olds. [21] The bill, which addressed findings that 4,500 children had been married in Virginia between 2004 and 2014 according to the Virginia Department of Health, [22] [23] was signed into law by Governor Terry McAuliffe and went into effect on July 1, 2016. [24]
In Texas, Tahirih helped draft and drive forward SB 1705 / HB 3932, a bill that limits marriage to adults age 18 or older, with an exception only for court-emancipated 16- or 17-year-olds who have been given the full legal rights of an adult. [25] The bill, signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott in June 2017, helped close the legal loopholes that made Texas the state with some of the highest number of child marriages in the country. [26] [27]
In August 2017, Tahirih released Falling Through the Cracks: How Laws Allow Child Marriage to Happen in Today's America, [28] a report that analyzed the minimum marriage age laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, providing state lawmakers and advocates with the information they need to pass laws that protect children from the harms of child marriage. [29]
Tahirih has spoken out against the Presidential Executive Orders on immigration issued in 2017. [30] On March 28, 2017, Tahirih testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security on the impact of Executive Order 13768 titled Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States on immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. [31]
Following the release of the United States Department of Homeland Security's new Victim Information and Notification Exchange (DHS-VINE) in 2017, Tahirih and partner organizations discovered that this public database contained identifying information about immigrant victims of domestic violence, human trafficking, and other crimes. [32] Tahirih requested that Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) immediately remove all confidential information from the database, citing that DHS was prohibited from disclosing such information under federal statute. [33] In response to Tahirih's advocacy, ICE removed the federally-protected information from DHS-VINE. [34]
Making Progress, But Still Falling Short outlines what more needs to be done to end child marriage in America both at the state and federal level. It contains the latest analysis (updated November 1, 2022) on all thirty states that have recently enacted laws to end or limit child marriage, calling out features that make them strong or weak.
Surviving Deterrence: How US asylum deterrence policies normalize gender-based violence is a joint report by Oxfam and the Tahirih Justice Center that documents how migrants and asylum seekers experience gender-based harm as a consequence of deterrence-driven US asylum policies. First, it finds that US asylum deterrence policies foster conditions that cause gender-based violence (GBV) to proliferate at the US-Mexico border. Second, it finds that the US asylum process is woefully trauma-uninformed and systemically disadvantages and re-traumatizes survivors of GBV who are ultimately able to apply for relief. The report concludes that by choosing a deterrence-based approach to asylum, the US is complicit in systemically harming and devaluing the lives of women, girls, and LGBTQI+ individuals desperately seeking access to the asylum process as enshrined in US law. These policies, moreover, normalize GBV as an inevitable consequence of pursuing safe haven in the US.
Ensuring Equal and Enduring Access to Asylum: Why 'Gender' Must be a Protected Ground , lays out six arguments for why gender must be added as an independent basis – the 6th ground – for asylum under US law.
Project Empower is a first-of-its-kind guaranteed income (GI) program designed to support immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. This program offered unconditional, regular cash transfers of $1000 per month to 10 Tahirih clients, all survivors of domestic violence with a child or children, for six months. A new report from Tahirih and our partner, My New Red Shoes, discusses the experiences and lessons learned from the first cohort.
"The Tahirih Justice Center is a national, non-profit organization that protects courageous immigrant women and girls who refuse to be victims of violence. We elevate their voices in communities, courts, and Congress to create a world where women and girls enjoy equality and live in safety and with dignity.”
Tahirih offers legal services and social services case management, policy advocacy, and training and education with the aim of protecting immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence.
Tahirih provides legal services for immigrant women and girls, with expertise in the areas of gender-based asylum, Violence Against Women Act Petitions, T Visas, U Visas, and Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. [36] Tahirih also provides family law services, engages in civil law, including appellate advocacy and impact litigation, and connects clients to social services. [37]
Tahirih utilizes the services of pro bono attorneys, medical providers, and other professionals to serve its clients. [38]
Tahirih's engages in non-partisan public policy advocacy focused on ensuring that U.S. laws and policies protect immigrant women and girls from violence and exploitation.
Tahirih's policy advocacy focus areas include protecting the rights of immigrant survivors of crime, promoting access to asylum for women and girls fleeing gender-based persecution, ending the detention of refugee women and children, preventing abuse and exploitation through the international marriage broker industry, and addressing protection gaps for individuals facing forced marriages. [39]
Through its Forced Marriage Initiative, Tahirih provides support and assistance to individuals in the United States who are facing or fleeing forced marriage in the U.S. or abroad. [40]
Tahirih offers training and education programs to front-line professionals, including attorneys, judges, police officers, healthcare staff, and social service providers in order to help them support immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. [41]
The Tahirih Justice Center is governed by a Board of Directors consisting of 20 independent voting members that oversee the organization's functions, establish its strategic direction, and maintain the organization's financial health. [42] [43] Each field office also has locally based advisory councils that provide guidance and ambassadorship for the organization. [44] Archi Pyati is CEO and Layli Miller-Muro is Founder.
Tahirih currently has offices in Greater Washington, District of Columbia, Baltimore, Maryland, Houston, Atlanta, and the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
International marriage broker agencies cite the alleged low levels of divorce among their clients, compared with the American national average, as proof of success. Tahirih counters that many of the men who use these brokers are repeat abusers looking for their next victim. [45] Miller-Muro, Tahirih's Executive Director, stated that "The agencies have a financial incentive to ensure the satisfaction of their paying clients – the men – but there is no comparable incentive to safeguard the woman." [46]
When describing the Matter of Kasinga and the associated media attention, anthropologist Charles Piot was concerned about the perpetration of possibly negative and racist stereotypes about Africa. [47] In an analysis of several New York Times articles about the case, Piot called the "evocation of images of the immutable nature of patriarchal tradition" in Africa "extraordinary". [48] Tahirih argues that several cultural practices in the world have adverse health effects that often go unnoticed because of poor education among the local community. [49] Tahirih posits that many of the subjects who undergo practices such as female genital cutting are uninformed about the potential pain and other consequences that result from it. [49] Since Tahirih views these issues as ones relating to human rights, it believes in the protection of individuals who may experience these acts. [49]
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making, and the state of valuing different behaviors, aspirations, and needs equally, also regardless of gender. To avoid complication, other genders will not be treated in this Gender equality article.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
Forced marriage is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without their consent or against their will. A marriage can also become a forced marriage even if both parties enter with full consent if one or both are later forced to stay in the marriage against their will.
The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) is a United States federal law signed by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The Act provided $1.6 billion toward investigation and the prosecution of violent crimes against women, imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allowed civil redress when prosecutors chose not to prosecute cases. The Act also established the Office on Violence Against Women within the U.S. Department of Justice.
Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), is violent acts primarily committed by men or boys against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against persons specifically because they are of the female gender, and can take many forms.
The Matter of Kasinga was a legal case decided in June 1996 involving Fauziya Kassindja, a Togolese teenager seeking asylum in the United States in order to escape a tribal practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). The Board of Immigration Appeals granted her asylum in June 1996 after an earlier judge denied her claims. This set a precedent in U.S. immigration law because it was the first time FGM was accepted as a form of persecution. In addition, this was the first situation in which asylum was granted based on gender.
Layli Miller-Muro is an American attorney and activist. She is the founder and former CEO of Tahirih Justice Center, a national non-profit dedicated to protecting women from human rights abuses such as rape, female genital mutilation/cutting, domestic violence, human trafficking, and forced marriage. Tahirih's holistic model for protection combines free legal services and social services case management with public policy advocacy, education, and outreach.
The United States recognizes the right of asylum for individuals seeking protections from persecution, as specified by international and federal law. People who seek protection while outside the U.S. are termed refugees, while people who seek protection from inside the U.S. are termed asylum seekers. Those who are granted asylum are termed asylees.
The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) is a federal statute passed into law in 2000 by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Clinton. The law was later reauthorized by presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump. In addition to its applicability to US citizens, it authorizes protections for undocumented immigrants who are victims of severe forms of trafficking and violence.
Egypt ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in March 2004.
Violence against women in Guatemala reached severe levels during the long-running Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996), and the continuing impact of that conflict has contributed to the present high levels of violence against women in that nation. During the armed conflict, rape was used as a weapon of war.
LGBT migration is the movement of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people around the world or within one country. LGBT individuals choose to migrate so as to escape discrimination, bad treatment and negative attitudes due to their sexuality, including homophobia and transphobia. These people are inclined to be marginalized and face socio-economic challenges in their home countries. Globally and domestically, many LGBT people attempt to leave discriminatory regions in search of more tolerant ones.
The 2014 American immigration crisis was a surge in unaccompanied children and women from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) seeking entrance to the United States in 2014. According to U.S. law, an unaccompanied alien child refers to a person under 18 years of age, who has no lawful immigration status in the U.S., and who does not have a legal guardian to provide physical custody and care.
The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) is a center affiliated with the Heartland Alliance in the United States that "is dedicated to ensuring human rights protections and access to justice for all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers." Its executive director is Mary Meg McCarthy and it is headquartered in Chicago.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision or female genital cutting, includes any procedure involving the removal or injury of part or all of the vulva for non-medical reasons. While the practice is most common in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, FGM is also widespread in immigrant communities and metropolitan areas in the United States, and was performed by doctors regularly until the 1980s.
Sex trafficking in the United States is a form of human trafficking which involves reproductive slavery or commercial sexual exploitation as it occurs in the United States. Sex trafficking includes the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or force into exploitative and slavery-like conditions. It is commonly associated with organized crime.
In the United States, a child marriage is a marriage in which at least one party is under 18 years of age—or the age of majority. The U.S. is the only UN member state that has not yet ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Its Committee on the Rights of the Child "reaffirms that the minimum age limit should be 18 years for marriage."
Many people migrating from Latin America to the United States are victims of sexual assault and sex trafficking in Mexico. People who migrate through or from Mexico without legal permission must enter into dealings with smugglers and, often, criminal gangs. Perpetrators may be smugglers or gang members, but can also be government officials, bandits, or other migrants. Sexual assault is sometimes part of the "price" of smuggling, and some women have reported preparing for it in advance by taking contraception.
Fauziya Kassindja, also known as Fauzia Kasinga, is the author of Do They Hear You When You Cry? an autobiographical story of her refusal to submit to kakia, the Togo ritual of female genital mutilation, and a forced marriage. She fled Togo and traveled first to Germany, where she obtained a fake passport, and then to the United States where she immediately informed immigration officials that her documents were false and requested asylum.
Transgender asylum seekers are transgender people seeking refuge in another country due to stigmatization or persecution in their home countries. Because of their gender non-conformity, transgender asylum seekers face elevated risks to their mental and physical health compared to cisgender asylum seekers or those whose gender identity is the same as their sex assigned at birth, including higher risks of physical and sexual assault, torture, "conversion therapy" practices, and forced isolation. As a result, transgender people face challenges in the asylum process not experienced by others.