Women and Migration: U.S. Embassy sponsors discussion
Rome: The United States’ embassy to the Holy See will sponsor the second in a series
of Town Hall conversations on Migration Thursday May 24th. Guest speakers
at the event entitled, “Building Bridges of Opportunity: Women and Migration”, include
the President of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerants Cardinal Antonio
Maria Veglio’ who is expected to talk about forced migration and violence against
women. Dr. Martina Liebsch, Policy Director for the Church’s umbrella aid and development
agency Caritas Internationalis will also participate, speaking about their work in
the field.
Farah Pandith, the U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities
and the child of Indian migrants, will also contribute Thursday’s discussions.
In
applauding the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See’s initiative, Pandith told Vatican Radio,
“Ambassador
(Miguel) Diaz has a vision that is very important. We have to think about the issues
that are hitting the world at this moment in time. One of which is of course the
status and the role of women who happen to be immigrants and what takes place in those
communities and within those families is important not just on a micro level but it
has an impact on the macro level. So the things that I will be speaking about will
be the trends that I’ve seen with immigrant communities and immigrant patterns and
the impact that they have around the world and the role of women who are minorities
and how they’re raising their children.”
Directly responsible to Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, Pandith focuses largely on Muslims under the age of 30 -
the majority of the planet’s 1.6 billion Muslims – working at a grassroots, community
level and via social media to help them build networks for constructive dialogue and
entrepreneurship.
Although her office does not deal directly with the darker
sides of migration such as human trafficking, slavery and sexual exploitation, Pandith
is quick to suggest that people of different cultures, backgrounds and faiths can
and should work together to combat such criminal activities in every way possible.
And social media present platforms from which to speak out forcefully against these
injustices while offering ever-evolving opportunities to bring people together to
promote mutual respect.
Asked how her office collaborates with the Catholic
Church and other Christian communities, Pandith said one of the reasons why she is
in Rome and meeting with people in the Vatican “is because I think it is a very
important thing that we do to increase coalition building. I think it is very important
that there are messages that we all have together no matter (our) governments or different
faiths - that we all have to work together on building mutual respect. And I am here
at the Vatican to do just that – to find ways that we can focus on young people together;
to work on issues of promoting mutual respect.”
Pandith said that she hopes
to get Christians to participate in the campaign she helped to launch called 2012
Hours against Hate.
“If you go on Facebook you can find 2012 Hours against
Hate and we’re asking people to donate one hour or more of their time to walk in somebody
else’s shoes. So, to do something for someone who doesn’t look like you, pray like
you or live like you. So, we’ve come here to the Vatican to talk to them about getting
Christian youth engaged in this campaign. And, we’ve gotten a very good response.
But more importantly, we’ve all understood that the message of pushing back against
hatred is a central one of any human. We must do more to promote mutual respect.
And one of the ways in which you can do that is to build, to have different messengers
go out there. When you see the destruction of churches, it should not just be Christians
that speak out against it. It should be others: Jews and Muslims, and Hindus and
others who can say this is unacceptable.”
Listen to more from Tracey McClure’s
interview with Farah Pandith: