Promoting Social Justice for Women in Egypt

The Mann Center is participating in efforts to promote social justice and empowerment for women in Egypt. Director John Knapp was a speaker last month at the conference, Women, Leadership and Social Justice, hosted in Cairo by Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak.

Dr. Knapp also was a member of a panel of leaders representing nine nations, moderated by the First Lady. The gathering concluded with a public event announcing the Cairo Declaration, a call for continued legal and social reforms on behalf of Egyptian women.

The conference was sponsored by Egypt's National Council for Women, founded nine years ago by Ms. Mubarak and responsible for a wide range of initiatives leading to economic, social, political, legal and cultural change. These include small-business development and job-training programs; a national ombudsman's office for women's concerns; new health-care services; adult literacy programs; a Women's Legal Rights Project; and increased numbers of women in the judiciary, the parliament, and the president's cabinet. The most populous country in the Middle East, Egypt is home to nearly 80 million people, 90 percent of whom are Muslims. With 20 percent of the country living below the poverty line, women and children bear a growing economic burden, especially in rural areas.

The Mann Center's involvement is part of its collaboration with Kennesaw State University's International Academy for Women's Leadership. Future activities are planned in the United States and Egypt.

Teaching and Research at Samford

Law Professor David M. Smolin, widely recognized as an advocate for international adoption reform, was quoted recently by the journal Foreign Policy in an article entitled, "The Lie We Love." Professor Smolin is director of the Center for Biotechnology Law and Ethics at Samford's Cumberland School of Law. Among his publications on the subject is a popular essay in The Wayne Law Review, "Child Laundering: How The Intercountry Adoption System Legitimizes and Incentivizes the Practices of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping and Stealing Children," in which he argues that "the legal rules of the adoption system are systematically used to 'launder' or legitimize these practices, by processing as 'orphans,' and then adoptees, infants and children who were stolen, bought, or kidnaped from their birth families."

News and Views

American adults trust their medical providers to protect the privacy of their personal information. A recent BBC World News America/The Harris Poll finds that doctors and hospitals are more trusted with confidential information than are email providers, banks, and government agencies. Social networking sites (e.g., Facebook and MySpace) enjoy much less trust. A number of studies show that public trust of institutions has been in sharp decline worldwide for the last decade. Related resource: 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer research report.

Researchers at Duke University found a strong correlation between ethical leadership skills and corporate financial performance. In the Duke Executive Leadership Survey , competencies associated with credibility were identified as being most important for senior executives. These included the ability to engage employees in the company’s vision, to inspire employees to raise their goals, and to promote an environment in which employees have a sense of responsibility for the whole organization. Leadership development was identified as the No. 2 challenge facing organizations, especially as budgets for training and developmnet are being reduced.

The Access to Medicine Index (AMI) rates and ranks the efforts of 20 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies to increase universal access to medicine. The AMI uses eight measures, broadly assessing each firm's policies and actions, especially as they impact developing countries. Wim Leereveld, chairman of the foundation sponsoring the project, explains, "The main purpose is to encourage pharmaceutical companies to do more. What gets measured gets managed - and whilst these companies have respect for governments, and NGOs, they mostly respect each other – so the list had to be a rank.” Related resources: AMI web site, featuring an interactive tool for comparing corporate information.

A large majority of Americans believe access to legal assistance is extremely or very important to people in crisis. According to a new study by Harris Interactive for the American Bar Association, nearly nine in ten think non-profit legal services provider is necessary to help those who cannot afford lawyers, and two-thirds support federal funding for such services.

Will Crisis Raise Awareness of Financial Exploitation of The Poor?

The current financial crisis may serve to "reawaken us to . . . some core ethical values: protection for the most vulnerable; balance of the economic opportunities for both lenders and borrowers; and justice and fairness that marks the borrower/lender relationship with truthfulness," said theologian D. Cameron Murchison in an April 29 lecture in Samford's Hodges Chapel. He argued that today's lending practices often conflict with biblical and theological understandings of moral responsibility. "Not only are the poor charged interest (against the earlier theological and ethical wisdom of the church), but they are also charged more interest than those who live in more favorable economic circumstances." He cited examples including subprime mortgages, payday loans, check-cashing fees, rent-to-own charges, and credit card scams.

Dr. Murchison is Professor and Dean of Faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary, a graduate school affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). He was the principal writer of the denomination's policy document, A Reformed Understanding of Usury for the 21st Century.His appearance at Samford, part of the Mann Center's A. Gerow Hodges Lectures in Ethics and Leadership, was co-sponsored by Beeson Divinity School and Brock School of Business.