For Immediate Release

August 28, 2000

FMF Launches Back to School Campaign

On August 25, Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and Mavis Leno, chair of the Foundation’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan, unveiled the Back to School Campaign – a new initiative to raise public awareness of the brutal treatment of women under the Taliban, which has banned women and girls from attending schools, working, or leaving their homes unaccompanied by a close male relative. The Back to School Campaign includes an Adopt-A-School Project, Afghan Women’ s Scholarship Project, and a petition drive urging the U.S. government to do more to help Afghan women and girls. “We must do more to restore the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. We want to help the heroic women who are running schools for girls in Afghanistan despite the ban and desperately-needed schools for Afghan refugee girls in Pakistan,” stated Smeal. The Feminist Majority Foundation has gathered over 210,000 petitions urging more U.S. action for Afghan women. Smeal and Leno will present the petitions to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to coincide with the launching of the Back to School Campaign.

Visit https://feminist.org/afghan/back2school.html to learn more about FMF’s Back to School Campaign and to find out how you can participate in this new program.

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