Femin Ijtihad

A Legal & Literary Academic Initiative on Gender in Islam:
A Project For Afghanistan

In the News

March 2008 Clinton Global Initiative Foundation recognised and praised Femin-ijtihad for dynamic work. Natasha Latiff represented Femin-ijtihad in fully sponsored trip to attend Clinton Global Initiative University 2008 in New Orleans, U.S.A.

April 2008 New York Chapter of Femin-ijtihad was established during Natasha's trip to the U.S. It is coordinated by Portia Seddon from CUNY Hunter. The NYC will research Afghan literary traditions and linguistic conventions. Portia Seddon is an ethnomusicology and anthropology student at City University of New York.

June 2008 Singapore Chapter of Femin-ijtihad sets up. It is coordinated by Nadia Ibrahim, a 3rd year law student from the National University of Singapore. The Singapore Chapter will develop its niche in researching Malay, Tamil and Indonesian legal literature in Women's Rights in Islam.

July 2008 Tamara Last meets Mr Talal Abu Hasan, Director of the Legal Research Division at Karamah Organisation in Washington D.C. and Mariam Nawabi, Vice President of Afghanistan Market Development and Senior Advisor to the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce and Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce.

August 2008 Femin-ijtihad has been assimilated as a permanent project under National University of Singapore Pro Bono Projects. Nadia Ibrahim will head this project. 

August 2008 Femin-ijtihad Singapore Chapter was featured in Today Paper (a Singapore Press Holdings Publishing) on the 10th of August. Natasha Latiff was featured in Vanilla Magazine in the Singapore August issue of 'Singapore's Global Girls'.

 September 2008 Natasha Latiff and Leeda Yaqoobi establishes an FI Kabul Chapter in Kabul, Afghanistan under the largest women's rights networking organisation, the Afghan Women's Network. FI will now have dual-administration centres; one as part of Warwick Law School (United Kingdom) and another under the Legal Department of the Afghan Women's Network (Afghanistan).

October 2008 Zeenat Islam coordinates and prepares a recruitment fair for FI at Warwick University Student's Union.

 

 

November 2008

Zahida Shah organises FI stall during Warwick Law Society's Pro Bono week, in association with Warwick Amnesty's Protect the Human Week. The purpose of the stall was to primarily recruit further researchers for FI and to market our project.

Commit to Women's Empowerment in Afghanistan

About

Femin Ijtihad works to assist Afghan Women and Human Rights Organisations in the research and production of information and educative materials on Gender in Islam/Islamic Law. 


Femin Ijtihad was founded by Natasha Latiff in 2007. It is now executed by a team of law students in Warwick University and has branches and independent committees attached to highly prestigious Universities in New York (NYU, Columbia and The New School) and in Singapore (National University of Singapore). 

Femin Ijtihad in Afghanistan

From August-December 2009, Natasha Latiff will be travelling to Afghanistan to perform a needs assessment, and speak to women's rights organisations in Kabul. At the end of the stay, FI will produce a report on the extent to which women's rights organisations utilise the Islamic framework to raise awareness, train and campaign for women's rights in Afghanistan.


The FI Team is in discussion with a number of Afghan Organisations regarding the products we could create for them using our research database.

Highlights

  • Nadia Ibrahim and Marge O'Leary  attended the Global Equality Conference, Musawah in Kuala Lumpur as representatives of Femin Ijtihad in February 2009.
  • Natasha Latiff and Tamara Last joined Bill Clinton, big thinkers and NGO's in the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference 2009 in Austin Texas in February.
  • Nadia Ibrahim travelled to Jakarta and Yogjakarta in Indonesia on a regional conference to conduct a study-visit of women's rights groups and NGO's promoting pluralism within Islamic thought.
  • Natasha Latiff, Tamara Last and Juhana Begum held a meeting with Womankind, Women for Women International, Oxfam and Afghan Aid to discuss how FI's products can be assimilated into their programmes.



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