Mavis Leno

Leno assumed her role as Chair of the Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan in 1997, less than one year after the Taliban’s brutal treatment of women began. She testified on gender apartheid in March 1998 before Senator Dianne Feinstein of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has consistently urged the Clinton and Bush Administrations as well as the U.S. Congress to do more to help restore women’s rights in Afghanistan. Her involvement in the Feminist Majority’s Campaign was also instrumental in defeating the energy company UNOCAL’s efforts to construct an oil pipeline across Afghanistan that would have supplied the Taliban with over $100 million and dramatically increased their control in the region.

She is currently a leader in the effort to make the restoration of women’s rights a nonnegotiable element of a post-Taliban Afghanistan, and has been at the forefront of insuring that the plight of Afghan women is included in the world’s reporting of the war in Afghanistan. Recent television appearances include Larry King Live, Today, CNN with Paula Zahn, Hardball, MSNBC Nightly News and The Tonight Show. Leno has also been featured in articles in Time, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, US Magazine, and People magazine. Read Less ^