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Ambassador Moushira Mahmoud Khattab, Ph.D is an Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian human rights activist, former politician & diplomat. She is the former Minister of Family & Population of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Ambassador

Ambassador

An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....

 of Egypt to the Republic of South Africa, the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 and Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

 as well serving in Egypt's diplomatic mission

Diplomatic mission

A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation in the receiving state...

s in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 and the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 (New York and Vienna). She is also a human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 activist advocating the rights of children

Children's rights

Children's rights are the human rights of children with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to the young, including their right to association with both biological parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for food, universal state-paid education,...

 and women

Women's rights

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

.

Educational background

Moushira Khattab holds a PHD on the rights of the child from Cairo University, an M.A. in International Relations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...

, USA and a B.A. Political Science from Cairo University

Cairo University

Cairo University is a public university located in Giza, Egypt.The university was founded on December 21, 1908, as the result of an effort to establish a national center for educational thought...

, Faculty of Economics and Political Science.

Diplomatic career

A career diplomat serving as Egypt’s first Ambassador To Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...

’s South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 and before it Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 during its peaceful separation to the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 and Slovakia

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

, Khattab ended her diplomatic career as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for International Cultural Relations.

Ministerial career

In 1999, Moushira Khattab shifted to the sphere of defending Women and Children’s rights as Secretary General of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM). The success of NCCM was crowned by its transformation into the Ministry of Family and Population and the appointment of Moushira Khattab as Minister. Since 1999, she has engineered a paradigm shift in the respect, protection, promotion & monitoring the implementation of the rights of women and children in Egypt. Ambassador Khattab coordinated national efforts targeting the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against children with special emphasis on girls. Combatting gender based violence including female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage are some of the achievements engineered by Moushira Khattab with heavy involvement of civil society. This was brought about through a number of interventions including the Girl’s Education Initiative, providing quality active learning to poorer and marginalized girls; adolescents’ reproductive rights and combatting child labor and child abuse and neglect. She initiated, led and coordinated a national movement to support the most comprehensive rights based legal reform for children; crowned by the adoption of Law 126 in 2008 bringing Child Law in closer harmony with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The amended law criminalized trafficking in children, FGM, and most forms of violence and discrimination. It raised the minimum age for criminal responsibility from 7 to 12 years establishing a new system of child protection including a restorative juvenile justice system. As a Muslim woman she played an instrumental role in bringing Muslim countries together to support the global movement for the rights of children and women and adopting a human rights approach. A highlight of such efforts is the conference she organized in Cairo in 2009 in cooperation with the Organization of Islamic States on Islamic Shariaa and the rights of the Child.

Khattab coordinated, in close collaboration with civil society, the formulation of key national policy documents including national strategies for the protection, rehabilitation and reintegration of street children, the elimination of Child Labor, and combatting violence against children. Key action plans were formulated including that on Girls’ Education, and Combatting Violence against Children, an “Egypt Fit for Children”, Rights Based Tracking of Public Budgeting for Children (for the first time ever in Egypt), and the National Survey on Street Children.

From March 2009 until February 2011 Khattab served as Minister of State for Family and Population of Egypt. She also holds the position of Vice-President of the International Bureau for Children’s Rights “IBCR”. Khattab represents the MENA Region on the Board of Child Helpline International and Chairs both the National Committee & the steering Committee of Middle East & North Africa on Violence against Children. Khattab served as Vice Chair, Rapporteur and member of UN Committee on the Rights of the Child 2002–2010. She is also a member in several associations such as the Women Leadership Council to combat trafficking in persons including children, UNGIFT- Vienna 2008. She Chaired the ad hoc UN intergovernmental expert group that formulated the UN Guidelines on Justice Matters related to children victims and witnesses to Crime adopted by ECOSOC in 2005. Moushira Khattab is Vice president of “Aflatoun Child Savings International” (Amsterdam) and is a regular lecturer on children's rights to police officers, judges, women organizations and the media.

Honours and awards

Moushira Khattab’s efforts are recognized internationally. She has received numerous awards and decorations, two of which are the highest that can be bestowed upon any foreign national: The Order of Good Hope from the President of South Africa and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic

Order of Merit of the Italian Republic

The Order of Merit of the Italian Republic was founded as the senior order of knighthood by the second President of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi in 1951...

, and the Decoration of “Commendatore” of the Order of Merit by the President of the Italian Republic.

Moushira Khattab has received the following awards for her diplomatic and developmental work:

• The Order of Good Hope (By the President of the Republic of South Africa) (1999)
• Commendatore of the Order of Merit by the President of the Italian Republic (2007)
• The Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2010)