Asma Khader

1952 -

Jordanian lawyer, human-rights activist, and a founder of Sisterhood Is Global Institute in Jordan.

Asma Khader (also Khadr), a Jordanian lawyer and human-rights activist, is founder and president of Mizan: The Law Group for Human Rights in Jordan and a founding member of the Arab Association for Human Rights. She served for two terms as president of the Jordanian Women's Union. Khader is a member of the Jordanian and Arab Lawyers' Unions and was recently appointed to the Executive Committee of the International Commission of Jurists.

Khader played an instrumental role in developing a legal literacy program for Jordanian women, as well as establishing the Jordanian Children's Parliament. She was instrumental in conducting human-rights education workshops in 1984 in different areas of Jordan and launched a program to integrate human-rights education within the school curricula. Khader is the founder and reporter of the National Network for Poverty Alleviation. Sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Poverty Strategy Initiative, the network was established in October 2000 in cooperation with the Families Development Association. Encompassing more than ninety participants from governmental and nongovernmental organizations as well as independent individuals, the network focuses on tackling poverty in Jordan and is also involved in the preparation of the Millennium Development Goals Report in Jordan. In 2003, Khader was the recipient of the UNDP's Poverty Eradication Award in the Arab states.

Khader served in 1999 as legal counsel to the Jordanian National Campaign Committee to Eliminate So-called Crimes of Honor in Jordan. She also served as a counsel to the Permanent Arab Court on Violence against Women in 1996 and as a judge in the Court's public hearings in Lebanon in 1997. She serves on the advisory committee of various national and international women's and human-rights organizations, including the Advisory Committee of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch and Equality Now. In addition, and at the request of prominent international and regional human-rights organizations such as Amnesty International, she has monitored trials and served on various human-rights fact-finding missions. Khader has maintained a private legal practice for over twenty-three years and was recently appointed minister of state and spokesperson for the Jordanian government.

Bibliography

Afkhani, Mahnaz, and Friedl, Erika. Muslim Women and thePolitics of Participation: Implementing the Beijing Platform. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998.

Ismail, Ghena. "An Interview with Asma Khader." AlRaida 70 - 71 (1996).

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