Women of Other Faiths
Using common values contained in their respective teachings, women of all religious traditions can work together and collaborate in many areas especially peace building and women’s empowerment. Collectively women of all faiths can learn from each other’s struggles and histories, while showing support for women’s religious leadership roles worldwide. Please contribute to this archive by suggesting women of all faiths to be featured through our recommendation form.
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Mallika Dutt
It was a really important moment for us, particularly as South Asians in the United States, to start putting out progressive Muslim voices and finding ways to express both our anguish and our enormous sense of loss over what happened, but also to counter some of the stereotypes that were developing as a result.
Mallika Dutt on partnering with Junoon after 9/11
Known For: Human Rights Activist
Dates: Common Era 1962 – Present (CE)
Faith: Hinduism
Country: India
About
Mallika Dutt has a long and active career in human rights education and advocacy. In New Delhi, she served as a program officer for human rights at the Ford Foundation, where she facilitated work between the police, NGOs, and community groups. After graduating from New York University Law School in 1989, Ms. Dutt joined four other women to found SAKHI for South Asian Women one of the first organizations to fight domestic violence in South Asian communities; it quickly gained national and international support and recognition. As associate director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University, Ms. Dutt became a strong voice for women’s rights as human rights and fought to place feminism within a mainstream discourse.
Ms. Dutt is the Executive Director and Founder of Breakthrough and Managing Trustee of the India Board. Through her work with Breakthrough, Dutt earned the American Courage Award in 2009.
Breakthrough is a human rights organization that promotes awareness and transforms public views of issues through the medium of pop culture. Within both the United States and India, Breakthrough focuses on immigration, HIV/AIDS, violence against women, sexuality, and racial justice and has met with a great deal of success.
Before founding Breakthrough, Dutt was the Program Officer for the Human Rights & Social Justice Program at the Ford Foundation, New Delhi. Dutt has also served as the Associate Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. A founder of Sakhi for South Asian Women, Dutt has served on several boards and committees, including the Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights Project and Asia Watch, The Sister Fund, Committee on Sex and Law - the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and the US NGO Coordinating Committee for the UN World Conference Against Racism. She is currently on the Board of WITNESS, which, like Breakthrough, uses video and online technologies to reveal human rights violations.
After September 11, Dutt and Breakthrough partnered with Pakistani rock band Junoon to create a concert video called “Concert for Peace” focusing on progressive Islamic voices for tolerance.
In 2003, She received the Spirit of Asian America Award from the Asian American Federation of New York and the Phoenix Service Award from the New York Asian Women’s Center in 2002. She was also honored with the National Citizen’s Award for Contribution to Women and Development in India in 2001.
