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87–428PDF 2014

HEARING ON WOMEN’S EDUCATION: PROMOTING

DEVELOPMENT, COUNTERING RADICALISM; AND

MARKUP OF H.R. 3583, MALALA YOUSAFZAI

SCHOLARSHIP ACT

CONVENED

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 3, 2014

Serial No. 113–165

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

TOM COTTON, Arkansas 

PAUL COOK, California 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

BRADLEY S. SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

HEARING WITNESSES 

Hedieh Mirahmadi, Ph.D., president, World Organization for Resource Development and Education ......................................................................................... 5

Ms. Humera Khan, executive director, Muflehun ................................................. 19

Kathleen Kuehnast, Ph.D., director, Gender and Peacebuilding Center, 

United States Institute of Peace ......................................................................... 29

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

Hedieh Mirahmadi, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................... 7

Ms. Humera Khan: Prepared statement ................................................................ 21

Kathleen Kuehnast, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................... 31

MARKUP OF 

H.R. 3583, To expand the number of scholarships available to Pakistani 

women under the Merit and Needs-Based Scholarship Program .................... 59

Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3583 offered by the 

Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Florida ................................................................................................. 67

Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 

3583 offered by the Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative 

in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia .................................. 74

Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 

3583 offered by the Honorable Lois Frankel, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Florida .......................................................... 79

APPENDIX 

Hearing and markup notice .................................................................................... 82

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 83

Markup minutes ...................................................................................................... 85

Markup summary .................................................................................................... 87

The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New York: Prepared statement ...................................................................... 88

(1)

HEARING ON WOMEN’S EDUCATION: 

PROMOTING DEVELOPMENT, COUNTERING 

RADICALISM; AND MARKUP OF H.R. 3583, 

MALALA YOUSAFZAI SCHOLARSHIP ACT 

THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. This hearing will come to order. Today we are 

privileged to hear from three scholars on the topic of women’s education and how a failure to appreciate its importance can result in 

missed opportunities for development and missed opportunities in 

terms of countering radicalism. 

I remember my experience with a small school for a while. My 

wife and I served on the board of this school in Afghanistan and 

we had been asked all through those troubled years—this was before 9/11—to assist with this school for orphans. 

It was in Kabul, and after the government changed after 9/11 I 

had an opportunity to go visit the school, and I well remember the 

feeling I had. 

I could—they were in a building that, you know, obviously, needed a lot of work but the students you could hear them citing—you 

know, going through their lesson plan and one of the classes was 

in English. 

The boys were on one side of the room and the girls were on the 

other, and the headmaster there asked me if I would like to ask 

any questions, and I remember asking specifically what these 

young people wanted to do when they grew up. A boy stood up and 

said he wanted to become an engineer. 

But a girl stood up and said, I want to become a physician, and 

I said really, tell me, you know, what you would like to do. She 

said, I want to go to Kabul University. I want to become a doctor 

to help my people. 

It was a reminder to look at those orphan children and see them 

being prepared but realizing how ill prepared most of the population was, going through those turbulent times of war. 

Well, following today’s hearing we are going to do a markup but 

we want to hear from our witnesses first. The markup is going to 

be on H.R. 3583, the Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act, and what 

2

this important legislation will do is require USAID to award at 

least half of its scholarships in Pakistan to women and, of course, 

Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani, is the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize nominee who has been recognized for her courageous efforts to advance 

access to education for women and girls in that part of the world. 

I also want to recognize the Pakistani-American community 

which has worked so hard from here in the United States to promote the education of safety and women—of women and girls by 

establishing and supporting schools. They also do a lot to support 

the medical schools in Pakistan, to support the orphanages and 

other medical centers and key institutions in Pakistan. 

Despite a general expansion of educational opportunities around 

the world in the last 30 years, women in most developing countries 

on average still receive far less schooling than men, as we will hear 

from our witnesses today. In some countries like Pakistan this difference is quite pronounced with only about 40 percent of women 

over the age of 15 considered literate—40 percent for women, 70 

percent for men. In Afghanistan, however, it is as few as 13 percent of women that are able to read and write. Today, we hope, as 

children are graduated out of school we are going to see that percentage increase markedly. But as you will hear today, there is 

strong evidence that the education of women and girls, of course, 

promotes economic growth, it increases life expectancy, it promotes 

childhood development. 

There is no doubt that educating women improves a country’s 

economy as educated women are more likely, obviously, to be able 

to contribute to the labor force. But the correlation between a rise 

in women’s education and per capita income has been absolutely 

proven. 

An increase in a woman’s earning potential benefits her family. 

Studies have shown that women tend to invest more in their children than men, which is why increases in female income improve 

child survival rate some 20 times more than increases in male income. Women who can read also stand to benefit from the pamphlets distributed in public awareness campaigns and have been 

shown to better understand radio broadcasts designed to keep them 

informed. 

Pakistan is an area of our concern here. Unfortunately, it is an 

area of our concern because of extremist groups that are indoctrinating youth by the thousands, and to offset this, of course, there 

are all-girl schools now in Pakistan being set up. 

I visited one of them out in the Northwest Frontier only to learn 

later that that particular school had been destroyed by the Taliban. 

That should tell us all we need to know. Education is the key 

counter to destructive ideology. 

As we will hear today, women’s central role in families and communities make them uniquely positioned to intervene and to stop 

the radicalization of their children. Mothers are most likely to spot 

the signs that something is off. Simply put, if angry young men are 

to be stopped before they strap on a suicide vest, women will be 

key to stopping them. 

It is also worrisome that, as one witness will warn, it is worrisome the soft radicalization of women and she will point to the 

3

growing trend of women involved in terrorist attacks. Education 

has the potential to counter this, too. 

We look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how women’s 

education can play an important role in defusing the factors that 

contribute to extremism and how educating women and girls is a 

catalyst for economic development. As one journalist has put it, 

‘‘Girls schools are just about the best long-term counter terrorism 

investment available.’’

I now turn to the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, Mr. Keating from Massachusetts, for his opening comments. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ranking Member Engel 

was unable to attend this morning and I would like to ask the committee for unanimous consent to insert his opening statement for 

the record. 

Chairman ROYCE. Without objection. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you. I want to extend my gratitude to 

Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for their willingness 

to hold this important hearing and for their readiness to work with 

myself and other members of the committee in support of this timely topic, and I want to thank each of the witnesses for their testimony this morning. 

I join the chairman and the members of the committee that are 

here to mention that with all sincerity our thoughts are with the 

families of the loved ones that were lost in the Fort Hood shooting. 

It was our former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who said, 

‘‘If women are healthy and educated their families will flourish. If 

women are free from violence their families will flourish. If women 

have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish and when families flourish communities and nations will flourish.’’

We are in the year 2014, yet women still account for two-thirds 

of the world’s 774 million adult illiterates, a proportion that has remained unchanged over the past two decades. 

And while the overall progress in primary education on a global 

scale in the past decades is encouraging, major barriers still persist. According to a recent World Bank study, 72 million children, 

a majority of them girls, are out of school. 

For this reason, although we may differ in opinion as to how 

much we should devote to particular programs in the international 

arena on this committee, we know that there is an investment that 

will continue to yield high returns and that investment is in 

women. 

Through their individual empowerment, whole communities 

stand to benefit from women who have already been assisting their 

communities through both traditional and nontraditional means, 

particularly, in regard to dealing with youth in areas that have 

been impacted by violent extremism. 

Violent extremism is not a regional infliction but crosses all national and regional boundaries. It can infiltrate our community or 

culture and is not bound to one cause or another, often leaving us 

with a feeling of helplessness at its extensiveness. 

4

Violent extremism is also remarkably self-regenerating, a reality 

that makes efforts to understand its origin, quell its spread, and 

counter its impact extremely difficult. 

Now, with the final year of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan 

underway and the final effects of the Arab Spring yet to be seen, 

we have had to emphasize focus on developments in the Mideast 

and Southeast Asia. 

But the time is right to elevate the conversation on women’s role 

in civil society and countering violent extremism in this regard 

throughout the world. Our discussion today should not revisit the 

countless reasons why women, half of the world’s population, 

should also account for half of its civic participation in leadership. 

Instead, we should seize this opportunity to hear from our three 

esteemed panelists on what precisely the U.S. Government and aid 

organizations are doing and should be doing to have the most impact abroad. 

Already, organizations like Muflehun and the World Organization for Resource Development and Education and the U.S. Institute for Peace, to name those represented today, are having this 

conversation and drawing attention to this important topic. 

However, here in Washington, where there is no shortage of intellect, policy experts and curiosity, too often these conversations 

remain within separate communities from security experts to civilian organizations and academia. It is time, as I said, to elevate this 

conversation to the highest level. 

In the short term, yes, it is critical to build up security forces so 

they are self-sufficient and can directly respond to counter violent 

extremism with targeted enthusiasm. In the long term, however, 

we must ensure that our efforts yield greater economic opportunity. 

It is through access, through education, that we can most effectively empower half of the world’s population—our women and our 

girls—as the front line agents of change. 

Today, we will hear directly from active members of the 

peacebuilding community and learn about their efforts to prevent 

extremist violence and make women, even those in the most 

marginalized positions, a part of the global solution. 

I look forward to their insightful testimony and I encourage my 

colleagues to utilize this opportunity to expand our understanding 

of how we in Congress can better ensure effectiveness in existing 

programs and resources, and I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Keating. 

Mr. Keating was instrumental in helping organize this committee and bringing it together for this hearing this morning on 

this issue. So I wanted to thank him in particular for his leadership on this important issue. We will now go to our distinguished 

panel of witnesses. 

For over two decades, Dr. Hedieh Mirahmadi has briefed numerous policy members and led several innovative programs to explore 

counter extremism initiatives in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

She also established the International Cultural Center to engage 

families in community building initiatives. 

Ms. Humera Khan is the executive director of Muflehun, a think 

tank specializing in preventing radicalization and countering vioVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:51 Jul 28, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040314\87428 SHIRL
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lent extremism. Previously, she designed and integrated methodologies for threat anticipation and risk assessment. 

Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast is director of the Gender and 

Peacebuilding Center at the U.S. Institute for Peace. Dr. Kuehnast 

has worked 15 years in the international development field where 

her research has included studies on community-driven development and post-conflict reconstruction. 

Without objection, the witnesses’ full prepared statements will be 

considered part of the record and members will be given 5 calendar 

days to submit any questions or statements or extraneous materials for the record. 

And we will ask Ms. Mirahmadi if she could please summarize 

her statement. You are on. 

STATEMENT OF HEDIEH MIRAHMADI, PH.D., PRESIDENT, 

WORLD ORGANIZATION FOR RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT 

AND EDUCATION 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Keating and members of the committee. Thank you for 

the opportunity to testify here before you today. 

Some experts rightly argue that the pursuit and apprehension of 

terrorists is a very different functional problem than the prevention 

of new recruits. The goal then of countering violent extremism, 

CVE as we call it, as opposed to the capture or kill focus of counter 

terrorism has led to a whole body of social science research that 

provides a framework for understanding the dynamics of 

radicalization. 

Although we won’t be able to predict who can be radicalized, we 

can mitigate the factors that leave a man or a woman vulnerable 

in the first place. This is the space where community-based programming is so critical. 

Increasing women’s access to secular and mainstream religious 

education is an important part about how they will prevent radicalism. In addition to expanding their access, there needs to be curriculum within these programs which undercuts the bifurcated 

world view presented by extremists who perpetrate a culture of hatred and misconceptions of the other. 

Fortunately, some female activists in Pakistan have already 

begun implementing such a solution. So over the past 4 years my 

organization, WORDE, has conducted field work in over 75 cities 

across Afghanistan and Pakistan to explore community-based solutions to violence. I presented those examples in my testimony but 

here I would like to highlight just a few. 

For example, in Kabul, in the Hanukah Parwan, it supports a 

neighboring madrassah that has approximately 700 students, female students, at all times, solving women’s problems, including 

family disputes and the teachers serving as confidantes and mentors to these young girls. 

In Kandahar during a heavy period of violence in 2010 it was 

thousands of women who congregated to urge the warring Taliban 

and pro-state factions to lay down their weapons. It was so successful that the U.N. organized similar rallies across the country. 

In the tribal frontier of Pakistan, Paiman established the Let’s 

Live in Peace project, where women and youth are taught mediVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:51 Jul 28, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040314\87428 SHIRL
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ation and conflict transformation skills. To date, over the past 20 

years Ms. Kadeem has reached over 35,000 youth and 2,000 

women. 

And finally, Dr. Amina Hoti has recently established the Center 

for Dialogue and Action at the Foreman Christian College in Lahore where she is developing Pakistan’s first interfaith curriculum 

to educate university students on the importance of pluralism, social harmony, and respecting the other. 

And finally, of course, a discussion of women’s efforts to increase 

education and counter extremism would not be complete without a 

discussion of Malala Yousafzai’s fight for girls’ education and defeating terrorism. We really hope her legacy will be continued 

through H.R. 3583. 

In countries where governments are corrupt, incapable or unstable, the burden of peacebuilding and countering violent extremism 

often falls on nongovernmental actors. So I will conclude with some 

very important recommendations from the activists on the ground, 

which are important principles for any CVE focus, development 

and education initiatives. 

One, greater efforts should be made to include female activists, 

especially those outside of urban centers, to any peacebuilding, security, counter terrorism and national reconciliation conferences. 

They are an essential part of creating local buy-in with their families and communities. 

Two, the U.S. should prioritize funding for building the capacity 

of women-led civil society organizations. Whether they work in the 

field of education, peacebuilding or nonviolence, they are an important part of the solution. 

Three, the U.S. Government could use its power as a convener 

and facilitator to host female activists from around the world facing 

political instability and violent extremism so they can share their 

best practices and learn from one another. It is important to take 

our local successes and give them a global reach. 

And four, as we engage in more peacebuilding initiatives, we 

have to develop some benchmarks for collaboration. Specifically, we 

should expect our local partners to share our values in promoting 

social cohesion and pluralism, respecting religious freedom, and advocating for nonviolent solutions to conflict. 

While increasing access to quality secular education can create 

better jobs for women and reduce some of the economic drivers of 

radicalization, educated women also play a pivotal role in 

inoculating their children and eventually their communities 

against radical narratives. 

By empowering more women in this field and especially in cross 

cultural education, peacebuilding and preventing radicalization, we 

create the public space necessary for them to be at the forefront of 

preventing violence. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today and I look 

forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mirahmadi follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF MS. HUMERA KHAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

MUFLEHUN 

Ms. KHAN. Good morning, Chairman Royce, Ranking Member 

Keating, and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear 

before you today to discuss the role of women’s education in promoting development and countering radicalization. 

My remarks are going to be a summary of the statement, which 

has been submitted, and I will actually be focusing on the role of 

education specific to countering violent extremism. 

This is a field where we have multiple definitions of CVE so let 

me lay out the definition I will be using in my statement. Countering violent extremism is the use of noncoercive means to dissuade individuals or groups from radicalizing toward violence and 

to mitigate recruitment, support, or engagement in ideologically 

motivated terrorism by nonstate actors in the furtherance of political objectives. 

Now, the programming which happens around it is around denying terrorist groups new recruits and this is by providing positive 

alternatives, countering terrorists’ narratives, but also building the 

capacity of government and civil society. 

We have to recognize that CVE goals are very specific and that 

actually separates them out from both development and public diplomacy. So while there is a difference in the objectives, both development programs and public diplomacy initiatives can actually 

have secondary and tertiary impacts for CVE goals. 

Now, the most effective way for CVE programming to meet its 

objectives is a whole of society approach, which means everyone in 

society, all sectors, and we can categorize the programming based 

on prevention, intervention, interdiction and rehabilitation. 

And one of the things we have to be aware that we have—there 

is CVE relevant programming and that helps establish stronger 

and more resilient communities, and they have a reduced vulnerability toward radicalization to violent extremism. 

And so many of these programs are actually preventative and 

these are the examples, and several educational initiatives are in 

CVE-relevant programming. But at the same time, there is a need 

for very specific CVE-specific programming with direct CVE goals, 

and these will be—some of them will be preventative, but they will 

also be working in the areas of intervention, interdiction and rehabilitation. 

And those CVE programs become really important, and programs 

like raising awareness of terrorism threats, what is radicalization, 

types of behavioral indicators, counseling for radicalized youth all 

fall under CVE-specific programming. 

Now, what we have to keep front and center is that the impact 

of women’s education is always going to be within the context of 

their role in society. So in the patriarchal societies that we are 

talking about, right, the voice of women, their empowerment, is 

curtailed. 

So when you educate women and they are empowered what you 

are doing is changing the status quo, which means men are immeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:51 Jul 28, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040314\87428 SHIRL
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diately also stakeholders in this change. And if you do not have 

community support for your initiatives they will not be effective. 

Now, despite all the society constraints that exist, women are actually full participants in all types of CVE programming, both CVE 

specific and CVE relevant in prevention, intervention, interdiction, 

rehabilitation—all aspects of it. 

I would like to emphasize that whereas CVE-relevant educational and vocational programs are essential for healthy societies, 

they will actually not be sufficient in eliminating extremism without CVE-specific initiatives as well. 

So, in the interests of time, I am going to refer you to my written 

statement on the section on reducing barriers to women’s participation. I would like to highlight that educating women on recognizing 

the signs of radicalization is actually a very good early warning 

system for communities. 

Also, the need to help women and families of people who are violent extremists, whether they have been arrested or dead, because 

what it does is prevents them from sending or supporting more of 

the family members into violent extremism. 

We know that social media is an equalizer for cases where 

women have limited voice because it gives them a way to express 

their views despite society constraints, and we know that in countries like Pakistan where 60 percent of the women are illiterate, 

broadcast media has to be used because print media will not reach 

them. So radio and television are very effective in reaching the target audience. 

So I would like to conclude by saying that development of CVEspecific customized local curriculums have to be used to push back 

against violent extremism in addition to the CVE relevant preventative programs, and this combination of both CVE-specific and 

CVE relevant programs has the ability to build community resilience, empower women, and counter extremism in the long run. 

So in this world where women are often victimized and they are 

oppressed by extremists, it is actually very heartening to see that 

they are able to transform themselves through education to be the 

line of defense against violence and extremism. 

And so really supporting increased enrollment in tertiary education for the women of Pakistan, through the Malala Yousafzai 

Scholarship Act, is an important step toward improving the role 

and empowering them to become change makers in the society. 

So Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Keating, and members of 

the committee, thank you for your attention and I look forward to 

answering any questions that you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Khan follows:]

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STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN KUEHNAST, PH.D., DIRECTOR, 

GENDER AND PEACEBUILDING CENTER, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Good morning. I want to thank each of the members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and especially Chairman Royce, and Subcommittee Ranking Member Keating for this 

opportunity to give testimony. 

My name is Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast. I direct the Center for Gender and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace. The 

U.S. Congress created the institute 30 years ago with a mandate 

to prevent, mitigate and resolve violent conflicts around the world. 

My statement presented today reflects my own views and does 

not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Peace which 

does not take positions on policy and is prohibited from taking positions on legislation. 

I want to make three points related to women and the roles in 

preventing extremist violence. First, there are excellent policies already in place to support this effort. Second, good work is underway that we can learn from, and third, we can and we must shape 

better and more effective policies for the future. 

In light of the discussion today, it is notable that the U.S. National Intelligence Committee Council’s Global Trends 2025 report 

highlights women as agents of geopolitical change and predicts that 

the economic and political empowerment of women should transform the global landscape. 

In 2011, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that 

directed the U.S. Government to establish the U.S. National Action 

Plan on Women, Peace and Security. 

It is mobilizing the different government branches to accelerate 

the integration of women in shaping, making and implementing security policy and practice. 

One of the pillars of the plan promotes women’s roles in conflict 

prevention and early warning and response systems including the 

roles women play in the prevention of violent extremism. The U.S. 

Institute of Peace is piloting a project in Nigeria that emphasizes 

the importance of women’s roles in their communities and in their 

home. 

USIP has learned that training in critical thinking and problemsolving skills enables women to combat violent extremism at multiple levels in their society. At home, mothers are often the first to 

observe the early warning signs of radicalization in their families. 

While the observation of changing or changed behaviors of their 

children may be intuitive, for many, the awareness and understanding of the process of radicalization is not. Even if mothers recognize radicalization in their children, they often lack skills needed 

to intervene. 

Women need to be equipped and supported in their efforts to prevent their children from joining extremist groups and also to build 

their own capacity to reject the influence of extremism and violence. Outside the home, at the community level women can be 

voices of tolerance and can provide strong counter messages to extremism. 

Specifically, in Jos Plateau, Nigerian women religious leaders, 

both Christian and Muslim, work as mentors in their communities. 

30

As a result of this training, they have expanded their roles to both 

monitor and provide counseling and guidance to vulnerable youth. 

Although the role of women is vital in countering extremist violence, the important role that fathers also play in being change 

agents and in supporting their daughters’ education should be recognized. 

In the case of the brave Malala Yousafzai, her education was 

strongly encouraged by a father who understood that girls should 

be educated for the good of the child and for her country, even in 

a very conservative society. It is clear that there is high demand 

by women for knowledge and skills to prevent violent extremism. 

What is needed to shape a responsive effective policies for the future? Improved access for women and girls to education so that 

they may develop skills, knowledge and self-confidence necessary to 

be productive participants in their society, develop inclusive policy 

and practices that focus on the role that women can play in preventing violence and violent extremism, ensure that men are involved in advancing the education for girls and women—fathers 

can play pivotal roles in supporting their daughters—and develop 

collaborative partnership among researchers, practitioners and policy makers to bridge divides and develop more innovative approaches. 

We know that it is in the interest of the United States to continue to support expanded international opportunities of women 

and girls as an investment in national and international security 

and to envision this long-term preventative strategy in the global 

effort to end violent extremism. 

Thank you for your time. I am happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kuehnast follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you very much. 

One of my friends in the Pakistani-American community had 

shared with me—he is in the IT community—his frustrations with 

governments in South Asia, across South Asia—India, Pakistan, et 

cetera—the amount of money that was allocated for education, 

which I think at the time he was claiming was like 2 percent, and 

he was contrasting that with, you know, the arms race in terms of 

nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan and the fact that the societies, the governments themselves, didn’t seem to understand that 

their long-term interests lie with educating their population and 

educating women and providing them with the ability to—you 

know. The question is the capacity of governments, I guess, and the 

willingness of governments around the world to recognize that education for women and girls is important but also to budget for it. 

And then there is the second question, which I wanted to ask our 

first two panelists, and that is for those governments putting 

money into childhood education, how concerned should we be about 

their capabilities of doing it effectively? So I will just ask you that 

question. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Thank you, Chairman. I actually think it is—

of course, there is a limited capacity, as you mentioned. If the 

budget is only 2 percent the capacity is obviously going to be a bit 

limited and hopefully with international aid and more focus paid 

on education. 

Chairman ROYCE. And those were his figures. They are not mine. 

I don’t know what the real figures are. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Unfortunately, I don’t have that statistic with 

me either. 

Chairman ROYCE. But it is——

Ms. MIRAHMADI. If it is close——

Chairman ROYCE. I think his point is probably true. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. What I am actually really concerned about, and 

I heard some activists from Pakistan here yesterday at the Atlantic 

Council, was the role that nongovernment organizations in education play on these communities. 

So ones that are funded from overseas that have alternative motives in funding these schools, and the religious schools, they may 

be creating a problem that even if the Central Government is trying to solve and create a very strong secular educational system we 

need to be careful about what is going on along side it by these 

other institutions that they don’t control. 

Chairman ROYCE. Yeah. I think especially some of the Gulf State 

money that goes into the Deobandi schools. How am I supposed to 

pronounce that? Deo——

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Deobandi, yes. You and I have been talking 

about this for almost two decades now. So——

Chairman ROYCE. Well, I have had three trips to Pakistan where 

I have talked unceasingly about this with the government, and 

there are 600 schools, which they admit are problematic, and those 

600 we have never gotten closed. 

There are, you know, tens of thousands of madrasas that educate 

to some extent, you know, young people in a positive way, but there 

are 600 schools that we know are doing this and there isn’t the political will to confront that faction, either in the legislature or out 

36

in—you know, among the support for the Taliban to get them 

closed. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. And I think the problem and I understood this 

from government officials in many countries is that it is not just 

the education that creates the problem. It is the sense that these 

communities provide funding, they provide resources, food, social 

services to the surrounding community——

Chairman ROYCE. Right. Right. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI [continuing]. In addition to the kids’ education. 

Chairman ROYCE. Right. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. That it becomes a real difficult social political 

problem to close that school. Then all those resources going to that 

community are cut. 

Chairman ROYCE. But that is the insight of the Gulf State benefactors, those families who are sending that money because they 

know that that is the way——

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Exactly. 

Chairman ROYCE [continuing]. Then to pull people in and 

radicalize them. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. The Hamas model. 

Chairman ROYCE. Ms. Khan. 

Ms. KHAN. I think the latest figures for a place like Pakistan are 

slightly less than 2 percent is going toward education. So it is actually quite—it is a very bad situation for it. 

In terms of where is the most effective money, in studies which 

have been done they found that the level of—moving from primary 

to secondary education, if you can actually have secondary education, it actually has a direct impact on the risk of conflict in 

those areas, and there have been places in Africa where they have 

seen it actually dropped by almost half if you can actually reduce 

the education inequality between men and women. 

So the need is huge and it actually would have a huge impact. 

Now, are the governments doing it? No. Is there political will? Not 

really, because there is enough other—I hate to say excuses, but 

enough other reasons that they feel that there is other concerns 

that they would like to focus on instead. 

Chairman ROYCE. But you feel that electing more women to office in those countries can help drive this agenda of more money 

for education because so much of it is going to be allocated to this 

idea of allowing young women an equal chance at education, right? 

Ms. KHAN. Necessary part of it, and I think the other part is also 

education reform—the curriculum reform itself across all levels. It 

doesn’t matter whether it is primary, secondary or tertiary because 

there are issues around, obviously, some of the problematic 

madrasas. 

But at the base level, there needs to be educational curriculum 

reform across the system to reduce the general level of the sense 

of hate mongering which is happening in many places. 

Chairman ROYCE. So an anti-Western curriculum, to pick one example, might be a problem that you have seen in some of the textbooks themselves in South Asia? 

Ms. KHAN. It is—yeah. It is things which you need—we need curriculums which promote social cohesion rather than actually emVerDate 0ct 09 2002 09:51 Jul 28, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_FULL\040314\87428 SHIRL
37

phasizing difference and conflict. And so that has to permeate curriculums across the board, not just in madrasas. 

Chairman ROYCE. One of the things that I have seen that is pretty inspirational is—especially out of the physician community when 

you have graduates of, you know, women or men who have doctorates here in the Unites States, they tend to be tremendously successful in the West and the amount of time and effort they give 

back to, you know, their education, to their medical schools or to 

setting up schools in Pakistan, for example. 

That is where I think a lot of the insights can come from in 

terms of people who are enormously successful here and yet are 

having a hard time figuring out how to work with USAID or our 

Government in order to leverage their expertise and their hardearned dollars that they contribute back in order to try to improve 

society and/or try to increase education and so forth. 

I wonder how we could better get USAID to work with the diaspora or with the community here in the United States in meeting 

these challenges and maybe leveraging these dollars and so forth. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Actually, it is something I mentioned in my 

written testimony, that we need more cooperation between our 

Government bodies and the diaspora community. And I know there 

has been several attempts, and the USAID has a particular office 

that handled that, but knowing some people that had participated 

in those conversations, it is often just a very simple discussion. 

It doesn’t get to concrete examples of how to move these initiatives forward, and I know it happened right before, like this one 

RFP was coming out and it ended up a $200 million RFP, and the 

community responded that there is no way any of us can absorb 

that kind of an RFP. 

You know, if you want us to help and you want us to suggest 

schools, none of us are capable of that level of commitment and 

that responsibility. So, I think the relationship kind of broke apart 

at that point, but it is important to notice that. 

Chairman ROYCE. I am trying to set up a dialogue with USAID 

and I wondered if you could assist me with that on this subject. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Of course. 

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to bring in——

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I would be happy to. 

Chairman ROYCE [continuing]. Representative communities. I 

thank you very much. My time has expired. Mr. Keating. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on the 

thread that the chairman had started. Obviously, the U.S. is not 

the only country or group that understands the value of working 

to empower people through education and through welfare, and extremist organizations are also operating at the local welfare and 

educational level as well. 

I want to follow up to see what can be done to compete with this? 

Because they are taking a vulnerable population, young people, and 

indoctrinating them with extremism types of thought. What can we 

do to deal with that? 

Because it is not just us wanting to move forward in these countries. We are competing in some instances with extremist groups 

that are doing the same thing. Anyone can——

38

Ms. KUEHNAST. I will answer. Based on my work in Central Asia, 

I was on the ground when the Soviet Union fell apart and I 

watched exactly what you are talking about. They are masterful at 

ground work. 

The first thing that they did is they taught English skills. They 

taught really practical skills that people on the ground needed, 

where the Western countries were primarily focused on trying to 

institutionalize from the top down. They were working from the 

bottom up. 

I think we need to somehow, as we are dealing with societies in 

deep transition or coming out of conflict, we have to keep both 

parts of this change in our focal point. It is harder to measure the 

ground. 

You need people like social scientists on the ground to be able 

to track this. But it is incredibly important if you want to make 

headway and to provide the skills, and in some cases it is food, 

education, clothing—basic needs in transitional situations. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I think another—of course, the extremists are 

recruiting, and they are using religion. So the antidote will be religion. 

So the difficult part comes as the United States doesn’t do religion so it is a very complicated position to be in, though I really 

believe that, and this is from many, many activists if not hundreds 

in Pakistan that run mainstream religious institutions and organizations, that they need the skills and the resources to compete. 

In other words, if there is a mainstream madrasa right down the 

street in Multan from an extremist Deobandi madrasa he needs 

computers to be able to draw students. He needs English language 

books to be able to compete with him and these are small amounts 

of money. 

But in order to have the capacity to serve students and attract 

them, he needs to be able to compete with those madrasas. And so 

it is just us being able to invest in religion, and that makes us uncomfortable. 

Mr. KEATING. Ms. Khan had mentioned the difficulty, you know, 

disproportionately women are illiterate, and it is so hard to communicate the message. 

Now, what are the better ways? I know we have, you know, 

Radio Free Europe, Voice of America. We have social networking. 

Now, how do you help particularly women who are disproportionately illiterate—get that message to them? 

Ms. KHAN. So now this is going to be very, very context specific, 

because in a place like Pakistan you have very limited permeation 

of the Internet and social media. 

So what you are limited to in most cases is actually mobile technology, which means you have your voice broadcast, you have your 

audio, your radio, your TV—again, very influential in those societies for sending out messages and that has been done and is being 

done. 

But then you also have anything which can be text-based, which 

is coming off of phones, and there are certain groups on the ground 

in Pakistan who are actually using those to put out messages promoting peace and against violence. 

39

If I may actually go back to the previous question a little bit as 

well is that this is a place where the role of women, if you can actually get them educated or at least be able to start earning an income, it actually changes the dynamics of the family structures, 

and they are actually empowered to start questioning their family 

members who might be going down toward extremism. 

So it is not just that they are earning money, but the status and 

their rank and those dynamics have a huge impact. And so when 

you get education into it, and you can get the messaging into them, 

what you are doing is, one, their status is raised—they are empowered. 

But then they are also—if you can give them the content with 

which to question, right, and if they are able to question at the 

very beginning of the signs of radicalization, it is a lot more effective, and this is not just a women’s program. It has to be community based for the communities around, not just that family, but 

around them to support that structure too. 

Mr. KEATING. Well, that leads me, lastly—and we are running 

out of time so—but specifically older women. I know we are gearing 

in on education and the effect of women who have children that are 

at an early age for education. 

You were touching upon this. How do we get to the older women 

who are beyond that stage and empower them? Because they have 

a very important role as well. 

Ms. KHAN. Face to face. Face to face. We need more women on 

the ground because sometimes women are the only ones who actually have access to women in those communities. 

So you need to have the women who are going to say this is 

going to be my drive, my cause, and they will be the ones who will 

create those safe spaces for education. And I talk about education 

in the general sense but for CVE-specific programming. We need 

women empowered to do CVE-specific programming on the ground. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go now to Mr. Steve Chabot of 

Ohio. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this hearing. Promoting women’s education throughout the 

world is incredibly important. I think we would all agree to that. 

As the witnesses have noted, countries within South Asia face 

some of the most challenging barriers to girls’ education and poverty is a central reason why millions of girls still miss out on 

school. 

Many of these countries, for example, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, also face socio-cultural factors that 

further limit girls’ accessibility to education. When we discuss how 

to increase educational and economic opportunities for women in 

these countries, I believe it is important for us to also address how 

we define success in basic education because these countries have 

their own definition sometimes of that term. 

How they define success impacts the quality of education these 

millions of girls are offered. Could the witnesses discuss that issue, 

how we should be defining success and how in many instances in 

those countries it may not be what we typically think it ought to 

40

be if we really want to educate these young women to what their 

future may hold? Ms. Kuehnast. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Yes, thank you very much. Defining success, as 

my colleague here talked about, is context specific. I don’t think we 

can dictate what is notions of social cultural ideals and ideas about 

what is successful for a girl or a boy. 

I think some of the success though does come in the fact that we 

begin to allow the space, even ideologically, that girls are worthy 

of education and that is a harder social cultural notion to shift. 

That is why fathers are pretty critical in this story board. 

We need them to also be part of the change process. Part of the 

change agency is to engage that whole of community and, in that 

perspective, help to develop intrinsic sense of what it is to be successful in their respective village, community, state. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. Since time is relatively brief for us I am 

going to address my second question to the other two panelists, if 

that is okay. 

Another of the obstacles facing girls in getting an education is 

fear of potential molestation and harassment on the way to and 

from school. This greatly impacts their school attendance, access to 

school, their learning, and their achievement. 

Regardless of their age, girls and women in many Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures cannot even leave their household 

without an adult male family member, for example. We have all 

heard stories about women who have not done it that way and 

ended up suffering from sometimes brutal attacks. 

As a way to combat this obstacle, Pakistan, for example, undertook a measure to provide scouts to accompany girls and I was 

wondering if anyone knew if that works, or are there other countries who find ways around some of these cultural barriers and get 

past the very destructive belief that investing in education for girls 

to be a waste of resources and, unfortunately, that is a view that 

is held sometimes in these countries. So if I could perhaps ask Doctor and Ms. Khan also to respond to that. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I am not particularly familiar with the success 

of the scout program or not, but I know community policing is a 

valuable tool in our toolbox. Basically there are some difficult relationships to negotiate between communities and their police, and 

I know our Government and many governments are investing a lot 

in teaching them community policing models and the importance of 

them being responsive to their populations. 

So I think in the cities in which we have done community policing training there is increased success in the protection of women 

especially because they are part of those training modules. 

So I think expanding and elaborating our community policing 

models to make sure they protect the rights of women and girls, 

and especially going to school and getting an education and being 

able to come to and from work as well, will be an important contribution. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. Ms. Khan. 

Ms. KHAN. Pakistan has started a scheme which is called the 

Pink Busses, and the idea is to allow transportation which is specific—it is gender segregated so women are actually not harassed 

and they can actually get from Point A to Point B. 

41

Definitely the lack of—the limited access to transportation to 

education is a factor and this is, again, one of those schemes which 

has had limited success because of resources, but they keep—it is 

enough of a need that they are trying to reinvest in those programs 

again and again. 

There are several other countries which have actually done 

things like having gender segregated parks or public transportation 

to allow—you know, to facilitate access. 

But in terms of changing minds, right, these are patriarchal societies, and so the people whose opinions have to be impacted are the 

men, right, and so there is an education aspect which has to be directed toward the men in the society about no, it is important for 

the women to be educated, and it should not be a threat to them 

that the women are actually educated. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Joseph Kennedy of Massachusetts. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

Congressman Keating as well for pulling this very important hearing together. First off to the witnesses, thank you for being here. 

Thank you for your testimony. Most importantly, thank you for 

what you do. It is extraordinarily important work. It is very difficult work and we are grateful for your commitment to development around the world. 

I was a former Peace Corps volunteer. You learn pretty quickly 

that if you want to get anything done, you go to the women in the 

community. So it is a lesson that I learned first hand, and if you 

actually turn around I think you will notice that given the gender 

dynamics of the room, I think I counted six men in the audience 

that weren’t staff members. So I am glad to know that that lesson 

is still alive and well in the halls of Capitol Hill. 

If I am kind of understanding your testimony and your answers 

to the questions a bit, yes, money and financial resources are certainly a constraint. They are always going to be a constraint. 

But also you are running up against history. You are running up 

against traditions. You are running up against longstanding, not 

even institutionalized, but just deep-rooted feelings about how 

things go and how things are done. 

That is made all the more concrete and all the more strengthened, I guess, in sections of the world, even in countries where 

their access to institutions or institutional players are virtually 

nonexistent. 

Whereas, I think one of you pointed out, religion is sometimes 

the only or the strongest institution that is present, and in communities that are in either post-conflict or coming out of conflict and 

stability, people go with who they know and what they know. 

And unless you have a long and sustained presence on the 

ground just to be able to build that trust, it is awfully hard to take 

on some of these challenges and entrenched, literally deep-held and 

deep-rooted beliefs that go back generations if not longer. And so 

I wanted to get your thoughts—you touched a little bit on that bottom down versus—excuse me, bottom up versus top down strategy. 

What from a policy perspective should we be doing to strengthen 

that and if you can—I view this as part of a much larger strategy. 

You need to keep doing what you are doing. 

42

We need to be far more supportive of what you do but trying to 

plug away at this in a vacuum, just supporting what you do, I am 

not so sure we are going to get you where you need to go unless 

we are also focusing on the context in which you are operating. 

So if you could just fill out that picture a little bit I would be 

grateful. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So I mentioned briefly the concept of USAID 

and the size of their grants, and I know—I have heard they have 

been trying to adjust that. I don’t know how far they have gotten. 

But empowering local communities requires them to have access 

to resources, so even if it is not reducing the size, it is just making 

our larger organizations partner with more organizations, basically 

providing smaller grants to local partners. 

So being able to resource these community efforts, and as I also 

mentioned using our power as a facilitator to convene some of these 

people that are doing great work around the world, to talk about 

their best practices and be able to give those projects a global 

reach. 

For example, Dr. Edah Schleffer does the Mothers Schools. So 

she takes cities, you know, and goes across cities from across India 

and Yemen and Nigeria and telling—and creating a network 

whereby women can learn to intervene in cases where there children have been radicalized. So that experience of a mother of Pakistan is absolutely relevant to the experience of a mother in Nigeria. 

So using our power as a convener and as a facilitator is very important as well. And then also just being able to give a floor and 

an audience to people that are doing community work so those lessons learned can be applied in other countries. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Ms. Khan. 

Ms. KHAN. So I agree with everything Hedieh said, without a 

doubt. I think one other thing which is important in terms of for 

programming itself is that we have to think about it in terms of 

long-term perspective. 

You are trying to change people—the way people think, some of 

the cultural norms perhaps but more so the values, right. You are 

trying to instill a sense of what is right and wrong, you know, more 

on peace, less on conflict. 

This takes time. So when you end up in a situation where programs are funded and these annual—you know, there is annual 

funding and the question is the program itself needs to run for several years. 

Sometimes the cycle of funding and the cycles for evaluation the 

MOEs and MOPs can actually hinder the implementation of the 

programming itself. So just like in development—infrastructure development projects they span years. 

We have to think about women’s education, especially in this 

realm, in the same way. This is not a short-term thing. This is a 

long-term commitment which requires everyone to play a part. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you. Doctor, if you can, briefly. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Very briefly, I wanted to say in terms of the policy-shaping story board, one of the things we want is definitely best 

practices, but we need lessons learned. We did an assessment on 

women’s programming in Iraq and Afghanistan and we found three 

things that need to be considered. 

43

We need to step outside the urban area and not only deal with 

elite women but also rural or agriculturally-based communities. We 

need to engage religious leaders in these change processes and, finally, we actually—and this came through all of these assessments 

we did—we have to engage men in the training as well. 

We are not going to change a whole of society by only focusing 

on women as perhaps the victims or the problems here. We need 

to change minds and hearts as a community. 

Mr. KENNEDY. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for 

the extra time. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. George Holding of North Carolina. 

Mr. HOLDING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Having the school programs for girls and women in Afghanistan 

and Pakistan is one side of the coin but, you know, making sure 

that the security situation in those countries is in such a state to 

allow them to achieve their mission. 

You know, my colleague, Mr. Chabot, mentioned some parts of 

the security situation but, you know, with the draw down of forces 

in Afghanistan and the region overall our withdrawal, you know, 

I am concerned about the security situation. The chairman mentioned the threat of, you know, groups such as the Taliban to these 

schools—you know, suicide bombers, you name it, trying to eradicate these schools by violence and any means necessary. 

Do you think the security situation will be such to allow the 

schools to carry out their mission? And I will let whoever wants to 

address that first to go ahead. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Well, I presented our members—I hope you had 

a copy of our report on Afghanistan post-2014 but, according to our 

researchers and the field work we did, the security concern is more 

for Westerners than it is for locals in the sense that though schools 

do get attacked but life goes on in Afghanistan. 

And so it is very important for us, as our military budget in Afghanistan decreases, that we increase our civil society budget, empowering civil society leaders and communities to do their grassroots programming and continue education and programs for 

women that they do well and have done for years since we have 

been investing there. 

So I think we have to understand a certain risk will be inherent 

in these activities. But life for the most part will go on for 

Afghanis, and we have to continue that investment for our national 

security interests. We don’t want to just hand the country back 

over to the Taliban. 

Mr. HOLDING. Right. But, you know, the security concern itself—

I mean, just yesterday a suicide bomber took out six Afghan police 

officers at a police station. So you think about a police station as 

a target, it should probably be a pretty hard target, you would 

think. 

A school might be a soft target. So there is very real security concerns there and yes, you could just imagine the horror at a massacre at a school for girls—being massacred for doing precisely 

what you encourage them to do. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I can tell you a bigger fear in Afghanistan is 

that the United States would turn its back. So more than they fear 

the roadside bomb, they fear that we will no longer be interested 

44

in them. So I think it is really important for us to stay focused on 

these civil society initiatives. 

Mr. HOLDING. So, I mean, a draw down of our forces—military 

forces in Afghanistan, I mean, what message is that sending to the 

people that you are talking about? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. They are very concerned. I mean, across the 

country they were very concerned about what the draw down 

means. So though, of course, they want the skirmishes to stop but 

they are most concerned with whether that means we will no 

longer have an interest in their future and their prosperity and 

their——

Mr. HOLDING. Right. It is just hard for me to see if we draw 

down our military presence in Afghanistan, how you can continue 

with a—you know, civil society programs without the military 

there to protect the programs. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I am sorry, but I beg to differ. A lot of these 

communities are doing really, really well without our military 

intervention and being able to continue these programs, especially 

outside of Kabul. So I have a very strong sense that they would be 

able to continue, assuming that they have the resources to continue. 

Mr. HOLDING. Good. Glad to hear it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Holding. 

We go to Dr. Ami Bera of California. 

Mr. BERA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses. Everything you say is buried in my own story. My mom 

emigrated from India in the 1950s, went to school in the ’40s as 

a female. It was unheard of in her village but only was allowed to 

do so because she had a father that thought it was important. 

So I think it is incredibly important and then had a father that 

supported her, emigrating to the United States to continue her 

education along with my father. I am the youngest of three boys. 

My mom became a public school teacher, and this is incredibly 

personal as a father of a daughter as well. You know, when I returned to India in August as a Member of Congress we had a 

chance to visit an organization in Mumbai called SNEHA. It is run 

by professional women, focused on the slums in Mumbai, and they 

specifically pointed out in our conversation that one of their key 

strategies is to work with boys. 

And I think all three of you mentioned the importance of getting 

to men—to boys early and over time, changing the value and the 

culture of how they view girls and women. Certainly, they are 

working with girls but I would not under estimate that just focusing on girls will not lead to the long-term change that we would 

like to see and I would be curious both in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well, if you want to expand on that. Maybe, Doctor, you 

could start. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Certainly. This has been something that has 

come out of our research—that women’s programming inclusive of 

girls is more successful when men are engaged and are change 

agents in the process. 

I would say also societies coming out of a violent conflict are particularly vulnerable to this concept of hyper masculinities where 

they have a gun, and it helps establish their status. 

45

How do we start unlearning that kind of violence? That is a 

whole set of educational training processes, that include curriculum 

change, that is vital for a new identity of what it means to be a 

really holistic man in society beyond the gun in which once their 

identity was established. It goes hand in hand as a holistic society. 

Mr. BERA. Ms. Khan, would you like to expand on that? 

Ms. KHAN. Again, I agree with Dr. Kuehnast entirely. I think because we are trying to change all of society, necessarily the young 

boys have to be included. But that is actually a place where mothers are very influential, right, because they are the ones who—for 

the first formative years are the ones who are—they are the ones 

who—they are the guardians of culture and social norms, right. 

So they are actually able to impart those values, right, which 

means they have to learn it themselves, that actually women’s education is important, that the young man who is going to grow up 

has to recognize it is important for his sisters, for the women 

around him, and he has to be a part of helping that. 

Your mother’s story, your story, is actually very similar to mine. 

The reason I was able to come here when I was 16 to start university was because my father was behind it. There is no way it would 

have happened without full support that okay, no, education is important enough for you to take—you know, to break social norms 

and make that difference. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. One Nigerian activist said the home is the first 

school and the mother is the first teacher. So, again, as my colleagues have said, it is very important to be dealing with both 

sides of the population at once and to make sure that the women 

are empowered and educated and being able to influence their children and then being able to influence the dynamic in their home 

and thereby within their communities. So I think both genders are 

very, very important to further this agenda. 

Mr. BERA. Great. Since I am short on time another aspect that 

we have had a hearing on in our subcommittee is on sex-selective 

abortion and really moving it out of the realm of reproductive 

rights but into the realm of really educating populations on the 

value and worth of girls as well. And that probably is more of a 

public relations effort and, you know, certainly, in India you are 

seeing some of it. Do you have any recommendations on that or 

thoughts on, again, how you change that value? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Well, both in talking about security and then 

this point that you bring up, in some ways we lack imagination in 

the way that we can use technology and social platforms for productive means. I think that we sometimes overfocus on the security 

side without being imaginative to how to get around these problems. 

And, certainly, when it comes to education we have opportunities 

through cell phones, through other means and, certainly, television 

and radio. I think, you know, we don’t think enough about that 

kind of public relations. 

Mr. BERA. Right. Thank you, and thanks for helping us imagine. 

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to go now to Randy Weber of 

Texas. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Mirahmadi—is that 

how you say that? You said that in some of your comments that 

46

the extremists use religion and then, if I got it down correctly, you 

followed that up by saying the antidote is religion. Then you followed that with the problem is United States doesn’t use religion. 

Dear God, what are we doing? 

What—if the antidote is religion what does that look like? You 

said the United States doesn’t use religion. Expound on that. 

Would you prefer—expound on that. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. No, I have no intention of changing the Constitution. England does religion but the issue——

Mr. WEBER. Well, the Constitution doesn’t prevent us from using 

religion. Let me just make sure we get that out there. Go ahead. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Okay. Well, it is just that the manipulation of 

ideology is within the context of religion, so the response to that 

manipulation and deviation is the correct interpretation of their religion, and in order to do that we need to empower a certain segment of the society, religious leaders, faith leaders, to be able to 

impart that proper narrative to their communities. 

They already are doing it. They are just competing against some 

of these extremists and deviant institutions. So it would be useful 

if the United States was a little more comfortable in allowing them 

to do what it is they already do and be able to do programming in 

that department. 

But over the years—I have been doing this 20 years—and over 

the years I have just heard a number of discussions about how that 

is just something the U.S. is not comfortable in doing. 

So parts of Europe, I know, do all these kind of programming 

quite regularly but that is just not something that we are necessarily comfortable with. I know USIP also had some faith leader 

engagement and some programs that Dr. Kuehnast can talk to. But 

maybe over time we will understand how important ideology is in 

this threat and we will find ways—innovative ways of being able 

to empower the counter narrative. 

Mr. WEBER. Well, that is a fascinating idea. You are saying that 

there are those who are already countering that religious extremism. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely. 

Mr. WEBER. How are they doing that? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. As I mentioned, with the proper interpretation 

of religion——

Mr. WEBER. All right. Give us that proper interpretation. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So, for example, jihad. Is jihad valid? Is jihad 

in the country against civilians valid? The mainstream teacher 

says no, it is not. There is no declaration of jihad by the state authority. These are noncombatants. We cannot kill them. 

There are very valid mainstream interpretations. We have written a lot about these that are out there, that they are trying to promulgate. But they don’t have the resources compared to the extremist groups. They are outfunded, outmanned. 

Mr. WEBER. Are these teachers in the educational system or are 

these teachers in the mosques and the different religious organizations? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. A lot of them run religious institutions in these 

countries. But some of them are university professors and are in 

47

other institutions as well, in CSOs—in civil society organizations, 

outside of religion. 

Mr. WEBER. Is this a growing trend? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I would like to think so. We are a lot better off 

than we were 20 years ago. There is a lot more people empowered 

with those counter narratives and willing to have the courage to 

speak up. Because, remember, in these countries that is dangerous. 

That is a dangerous business. But I believe we are better off than 

we were 20 years ago toward this threat. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. Ms. Khan, do you agree with her statement that the antidote is religion? 

Ms. KHAN. I think there is a role for religion to be played when 

you are talking about for the antidote for ideologically inspired extremism. Extremism, or engagement in violent extremism, happens 

for many different reasons and not all of them are ideological, 

right. It comes through—people get involved in kinship. There is 

multiple reasons why people engage. 

Mr. WEBER. But would you say that most of them come through 

religious extremism? 

Ms. KHAN. No, actually. I would disagree with that and that is 

where it becomes very context specific because you have certain 

areas where, because a family member is involved, therefore he or 

she is able to pull in other family members and then network into 

it, and the reason they get initiated into it is not because of ideology but because of kinship ties. 

Now, they might get indoctrinated post-involvement in the group 

but it happens afterwards. So because radicalization or the ideological radicalization is not the starting point in all of them, it is, 

again, a very contextual thing. Now——

Mr. WEBER. Okay. Thank you. I want to go over here. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. That is absolutely correct what she said. 

Mr. WEBER. What she said. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I didn’t mean it is not the only factor. 

Mr. WEBER. No, I got that. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Ideology and theology is not the only factor at 

all. 

Mr. WEBER. And is it Dr.—pronounce your last name. 

Kuehnast—weigh in on that. What is your thought? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. On the antidote? 

Mr. WEBER. Mm-hmm. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Well, I would say that I agree with Ms. Khan 

here that if we are talking about violent extremism that it is 

maybe one part of the narrative that we should focus in on. 

I do think that there are ways that peacebuilding and peacemaking can be a part of the narrative. We can train and expose 

leaders of religious faith to these other narratives about 

peacebuilding. This is something that we have worked on at the Institute of Peace for 20 years to bring religious leaders together to 

understand through a peacebuilding lens versus a religious lens 

what it means to listen, to cooperate and build a peaceful community. 

Mr. WEBER. Do you teach in that process a respect for the sanctity of life? 

48

Ms. KUEHNAST. Do we teach—I am not a trainer in that but we 

teach to——

Mr. WEBER. I mean, if you are going to have peace, I mean, isn’t 

the ultimate goal not to kill somebody else? That is not very peaceful. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. Training is really focused on building healthy 

communities, healthy families, and sustaining peaceful processes of 

that community. 

Mr. WEBER. Thank you. 

Chairman ROYCE. We are going to have to go, I think, to Mr. 

Cicilline of Rhode Island. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very 

much to our witnesses for your testimony. As you know, in many 

areas some of the most extreme organizations, or extremist organizations, often provide important social services and act as local welfare and education agencies, and I wondered if you sort of recognized that that presents special challenges in terms of not ensuring 

a particularly young and vulnerable generation of girls and young 

women become radicalized, if you have seen good examples of policy around that, what we should do as, you know, in our relationships with these organizations or these countries. Have there been 

some countries that have done that successfully and provided good 

educational opportunities and separated it from the kind of 

radicalization that the underlying organization promotes? And I 

don’t know if—start with you, Doctor. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. It is a very complicated problem. You see now 

with Egypt, you see in Palestine, in Lebanon, separating the social 

welfare component of these organizations is very difficult and, quite 

frankly, I haven’t seen models of it being done well. 

One of the recommendations we make quite often is teaching the 

mainstream secular prominent CSOs in disaster humanitarian relief in terms of when there is a flood or some other kind of natural 

disaster so it is not just the extremist groups that are on the 

ground but also developing social welfare components of their institutions. 

So they need to understand how effective this model is and be 

empowered to do the same. So I think so far that has been our best 

recommendation, especially from activists on the ground. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Ms. Khan. 

Ms. KHAN. Examples—good examples, well, perhaps not that 

many. I think one thing I would like to highlight is that there are 

certainly NGOs who are working on the ground who are trying to 

provide some of the social welfare instead of the extremist organizations. 

But in those contexts you have to recognize that they are going 

to be entering a space where there are extremists in those communities, which means in certain cases NGOs are very restricted in 

what they can or cannot do because of legal constraints. Because 

if you are engaging with a particular community where some of the 

people, for example, might be a family member of someone who has 

engaged in violence, they don’t want to have to worry about issues 

of where it is now you are providing material support for terrorism. 

So there is actually—it ends up being a very scary space for certain, at least external, NGOs to operate. 

49

Local NGOs are able to work that better and I think there is a 

need to actually work with a lot of the locals who are able to navigate some of those spaces. But in terms of the social welfare, I 

mean, everyone has that arm, right? 

[Foreign language spoken] they are not—they claim they are not 

a terrorist organization but LET is. It is very messy. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Yes. Doctor. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. I think some of the best examples that I have 

seen actually aren’t about the counter narrative. They are about 

skill sets. One group is Peace Through Business that work with Afghan and Rwandan women. 

Learning a trade, learning a skill, learning how to actually 

produce something that then you can build into a business is an 

incredibly empowering process. It creates inherent leadership in 

that community and creates a different imagination for what is 

possible for both boys and girls, men and women. 

And I think sometimes we can overfocus on the issue and not 

think about other spaces that can counter those kind of narratives. 

A great example is building skills like business skills for women. 

Mr. CICILLINE. And I don’t have a lot of time left and if you have 

thoughts about this that you can’t provide today, I would love to 

hear them at some future time. But it seems to me the other challenge we face is that women and girls are very often seen very active in kind of the grassroots efforts in a lot of countries that we 

are speaking about and the question about how we see more 

women in senior positions of responsibility in government and at 

the negotiating table and, you know, in places where their presence 

will be noticed among the group that they are in but also in the 

larger community and what strategies we might support to help 

advance women in those important senior positions would be particularly helpful, I think. Yes. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I think making sure they are on the guest list. 

So I know when government offices are arranging conferences or 

participating, include more female activists and speakers, and so 

eventually when we help elevate their profile and other countries 

elevate their profile they become players. 

And I think that their own governments then also begin to recognize them. And remember, a lot of Muslim countries do have 

women leaders and women in politics—Pakistan, in particular, 

Bangladesh. So it isn’t a stretch to include women. I think it is just 

the rest of us being conscious of including them in the peace processes and especially in counter terrorism and security as well. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Good suggestion. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline. We go now to Lois 

Frankel of Florida. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for bringing 

this issue today. Thank you to the panel. It has been very interesting. Malala was here in Washington last year, and she is a very 

courageous young lady and very inspiring. 

But I have a number of questions that I would like to ask you. 

So first of all, I think it is quite obvious that more women will be 

mothers than just leaders, so my first question would be, does any 

50

of your research show a correlation between mothers being educated and having extremist children? 

There was a comment about the importance of the curriculum 

being a certain type of curriculum. I think one of you made mention of that, and Pakistan, I think, has 175 million people. Is that 

correct? More than that. 

So I wanted to get your sense of the impact of these kind of 

scholarships we are going to be talking about today because I think 

we all agree it is fair—it is only fair that women get at least half. 

But the question I have for you is what do you think the impact 

of the scholarships are and what would you say would be some of 

your top initiatives—some other things that we can do in addition 

to scholarships? Any one of you could start. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So I am sorry. The question about being educated and having extremist kids meaning that if they were educated they would not have extremist kids? Okay. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Yes. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. I presume that is what you meant. But I don’t 

know of any studies about actually how many were able to decrease 

the radicalization of their children, but there are definitely studies 

which I cite in my written testimony about the impact that educated women will have on preventing the radicalization of their 

children. So it is very, very important, and I stress secular and 

mainstream religious education. 

So it is important for them not only to understand, you know, the 

secular sciences and to be educated and knowledgeable women but 

to also understand that when their kid, you know, is moving toward a radicalized interpretation of the faith they can recognize it 

and be able to interdict. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Let me just stop you for 1 second. Are you saying 

that if women are steered toward the wrong kind of education it 

will not have the effect that we would like? In other words, if it 

is not mainstream religious, if it is not secular, that it could have 

a detrimental effect? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Well, I mean, as I mentioned in my testimony 

about the soft radicalization of women, this is a phenomenon that 

I have described to others that women who are taught a very—a 

deviant or austere or very rigid interpretation of the religion, they 

can pass that on to their children. 

So they won’t—they will not be—they will be perpetrators and 

helpers rather than interdictors. So we definitely want to understand the quality and the kind of education that they are getting. 

That is definitely important. 

And then the curricula that I mentioned in particular, because 

Humera also mentioned curricula, was that we needed to have tolerant peacebuilding curricula like the one that Dr. Amina is doing 

in Lahore, is emphasizing the importance of a cross cultural education. 

In fact, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has also talked about 

this—having respect for societal pluralism, respect for other denominations, religions and races, that this kind of tolerance is an 

important part of curricula, secular or religious. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Did someone want to comment on the effectiveness 

of merit and need-based scholarships? 

51

Ms. KHAN. Anytime you can get more women educated that is a 

good thing. It helps society. There is nowhere—you know, it just 

helps society and it actually does have—it has secondary and tertiary impacts also. Just the benefits are numerous, right. 

There is no question about that. I think one thing which would 

really help, or in addition to the scholarships, is if part of the scholarship can also require a commitment back into the community. So 

it is not just that they get educated—they get the education—but 

some sort of commitment that they will actually serve their communities in particular and, again, that will come back to in terms 

of what are the areas that the scholarships are available for, right, 

and what are we trying to actually promote. 

Because you can have women—you know, you can talk about you 

want more women to do—to become teachers but you can also have 

women who will eventually end up in leadership roles or in politics 

or there is different types of topics or subject areas that you would 

emphasize depending on how you would like to in the long term 

channel the empowerment of women. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. And I would like to pick up on that idea of what 

I would call ‘‘paying it forward’’ in terms of the scholarships, that 

the recipients of the scholarship are also committed to giving back 

in some sort of way to their community and providing mentorship 

to others so that you really spread the access of the knowledge of 

that particular person among many. 

I have actually seen it working in action, again, through the 

Peace Through Business. It is a profound way of getting these kind 

of resources stretched over many people but also over time. You 

want this to last a while. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you. Mr. Chair, would that—these sound 

like very good suggestions. Is that something that this committee 

could entertain as this legislation moves forward? 

Chairman ROYCE. Absolutely, Ms. Frankel, and remember we 

have a markup following the hearing. Okay. 

Thank you. We are going to go to Tulsa Gabbard of Hawaii. 

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Aloha and good morning. Thank you for being here and for speaking so candidly about 

the work that you are doing and the effects that you are seeing and 

also talking about where we can and need to be doing more. 

I have three questions I am going to try to ask quickly and see 

if you can try to address them. Just following up on Mr. Holding’s 

questions about the necessity of security going forward when there 

is NGO work or work that is still being done on the ground, knowing that our military presence from Afghanistan is diminishing 

greatly. 

My second question is with regards to the female engagement 

teams in Afghanistan, in particular, what kind of impacts do you 

think that they have had? And lastly, as you are looking at communicating with these different generations of women what are some 

of the different approaches that you are taking, for example, with, 

you know, young girls—girls who are growing up, going through 

high school or young women, as opposed to the generation before 

them of their mothers and grandmothers where, you know, as a 16-

year-old you might be very active perhaps in social media whereas, 

52

you know, their mothers or grandmothers would view things and 

be empowered in a completely different way. 

Dr. Mirahmadi, I will let you start. Thank you. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So security going forward, this is going to be a 

difficult problem, especially for U.S.-based NGOs working in Afghanistan. So one of the suggestions that we have put in our report 

that you should have on the table is about hiring and using local 

NGOs to facilitate the M&E, monitoring and evaluation and implementation, because, as I mentioned, Afghans—for Afghans this is 

business as usual—life will go on—and they really need our continued attention and focus on building that infrastructure, continuing 

in the capacity building of civil society, and they really would like 

to see those initiatives continue. So——

Ms. GABBARD. On that, you know, there has been a lot of talk 

and concern about corruption within the government there. Is their 

level of confidence greater in these local NGOs than there is in government? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it is a different 

dynamic between the local communities and what happens in 

Kabul. So they also have a lot of mistrust of the Central Government. 

So I think it is a—there are a lot of—and actually we have done 

a report that lists 100 potential CSOs that are partners—potential 

partners for the United States. We have actually vetted these organizations to provide them as possible alternative partners, and they 

do have—I mean, they don’t have the fiscal good governance and 

some of the structures that we would like to see as an Americanbased organization, but if we build their capacity a bit I am sure 

we can get there and they could be a very valuable resource for our 

projects going forward. 

And then one other thing I would comment on is the difference 

between the youth and the older generations. Of course, the older 

generations are worried about their kids and their grandkids. So 

it is always effective to reach out to them in terms of being that 

first line of defense for their children. 

But with young people I find they are very focused on empowerment and leadership. So they want to learn from us how to be better leaders and how to learn to be leaders in their communities and 

in their societies, whether it is political or at the community level. 

So I think empowering them in that way is very important. And 

then Internet safety—teaching them responsible uses of the Internet, understanding digital citizenship, understanding that what 

they put out there stays with them forever and that the comments 

that they post and what they allow people to post back is relevant 

too. So those are things that we——

Ms. GABBARD. Thank you. Dr. Kuehnast, do you have anything 

to add? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. I would like to comment on your question about 

the female engagement teams in Afghanistan. About a year and a 

half ago at the U.S. Institute of Peace, we hosted an off-the-record 

discussion with members of the various militaries on the FETs and 

it proved to be very interesting. 

53

I think overall many who were female engagement team members found it a very enriching experience but were frustrated that 

oftentimes their work was not integrated in the operations overall. 

And I do remember one Marine saying what is key moving forward: These efforts have to be operationally integrated or else it 

becomes a silo. It is an interesting study project but it really has 

to be seen in that command center. 

Ms. GABBARD. Yes. Thank you. That is such an important point, 

just to recognize and to be able to see things in a broader way than 

just beyond the very focused kind of military tactical look and see 

how these relationships are impacted and how it really benefits 

that common objective at the end of the day. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Grace Meng of New York. 

Ms. MENG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 

Member Keating and to all of our panelists for being here today 

and the important work that you do. 

I just want to add on to the conversation from before. In some 

areas, extremist organizations also operate as local welfare and 

education providers, leading to increased indoctrination of a vulnerable youth population. 

How can the U.S. effectively achieve its goals in areas where 

education is provided by such extremists, and are there any successful examples that might serve as models for this? And anyone 

can answer. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. I will speak from my experience working in 

international development. Some of the best efforts I saw happening in Central Asia where all of this kind of, as you say, local 

welfare was being imported from outside of their world and there 

was great need, of course. 

But I think when we move this kind of effort to community-driven development so that the communities have access to the funding, and it doesn’t get caught always in newly-forming institutional 

structures, especially those countries that are coming out of conflict. There are not the kind of institutions that can really funnel 

that funding. 

So we need to find mechanisms that are more community based 

that can help get the needs answered as a way to, in one sense, 

counter this kind of local welfare, as you pointed out. 

Ms. MENG. My second question is regarding efforts to promote 

women’s education and self-empowerment. I have heard of one example where in 2007 the state of Bihar in India began providing 

bicycles to teenage girls to help them get to school because their 

trip was either too far or too costly. 

The number of girls who registered for high school tripled in the 

first 4 years of the program and it was so successful that other Indian states started similar programs. An unexpected benefit was 

that it also raised the status of girls and their families in their villages. 

All the members of the family could use this bicycle to get groceries, run errands, and make the lives of everyone in those families better. How do we work more closely with some of these local 

governments and develop initiatives to promote women’s access to 

54

education with local level governments and knowledge and at the 

same time being culturally sensitive? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. All right. I will weigh in. Again, that is a wonderfully imaginative approach to trying to answer a bigger question 

about accessing education. We need more examples like that. 

We need more examples in our own agencies to think outside the 

box, if you will. We sometimes reproduce our own bad ideas. As we 

talk about critical thinking and problem solving we need to apply 

the same and take risks in different ways to approach very practical everyday issues with a new lens in mind. That is, again, 

where I think sometimes communities are their best asset in terms 

of that kind of problem solving. 

Ms. KHAN. I think I would really like to echo the last point Dr. 

Kuehnast made. If you ask communities how to solve their own 

problems, they actually will come up with answers, and the answers they come up with are usually the ones which are going to 

stick the best because they own the solution. 

But in many cases, if we try to define here is your problem and 

here is the solution and you guys should just do it, it actually 

doesn’t stay. And so in these communities actually getting—using 

the communities to solve or to come up with solutions is actually 

very effective, and this is a place where youth are very effective because they want to engage. 

And if they actually—you know, if they come up with ideas and 

they start to see them being implemented, it gives them a greater 

investment back into the improvement of their own societies. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. And actually we did this in Afghanistan so we 

had local development councils that we created to help bring the 

community members together to talk about what initiatives they 

wanted to put forward, and it was extremely successful and I don’t 

see why we couldn’t do that in other countries as well. 

So it is bringing together the local partners and stakeholders and 

asking them for their input on project ideas and then having a 

democratic mechanism to choose which ones will be implemented 

and then being responsible for the monitor and evaluation of its 

success. 

So I think that having them—a community-based solution and 

having them as part of the development and implementation is 

really important. 

Ms. MENG. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. We go to Gerry Connolly of Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and with permission 

I would like to—I would like to yield to my colleague, Mr. Sherman, and come back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Without objection. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Virginia. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. In fairness, if we could start over Mr. Sherman’s 

time, Mr. Chairman. Could we start back at five? 

Chairman ROYCE. Not to worry. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Mr. SHERMAN. One thing I have been advocating on this committee for a long time is that we put our development and foreign 

55

aid dollars into printing textbooks. First, it is helpful to support 

education. 

Second, it gives us control of the values that underlie the message in those textbooks. We would have to be careful. I mean, if 

I was writing the textbooks I might put in the Chapter 14 great 

things you would love about Israel. 

I am not sure that the programs you work with would find wide 

acceptance for the book that I would write. A third element is corruption. If we are providing free textbooks or extremely low-priced 

textbooks and somebody steals them, who are they going to sell 

them to? 

If we go into a country and are providing those same textbooks 

free to most parents—and also a textbook can be marked, and you 

can put a hologram in it or a code in it and trace it so, you know, 

whereas rice or money or whatever can be stolen more easily. To 

what extent do textbook costs cause parents to either not send 

their kids to school or not send their kids to school for as many 

years as they might otherwise, or to send some of their children to 

school but decide others will not go to school? 

What is—and I realize it is different from country to country but 

are textbook costs a barrier to education? Yes, Doctor. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Thank you for the question. I actually love the 

idea of textbooks. So a number of our activists in Pakistan especially have asked for textbooks. 

Of course, the content and subject matter of the textbooks is very 

relevant and what we—as you mentioned, what we would put in 

the textbooks. And, unfortunately, I was part of a project that was 

overlooking the textbooks we were sending to Afghanistan in the 

beginning of the war, and you would be horrified by what was in 

the content of the textbooks we printed. So they were simply a reproduction of old Afghani textbooks—counting Kalashnikovs. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Kalashnikovs. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. So it is important—the content is important. So 

we would have to—we would have to make sure that we were, you 

know, very clear about what we expected to have in that content. 

But I think it is an extremely wonderful tool, especially for existing 

institutions. As to sending them to homes and families, I am not 

sure about how that would——

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, I mean, there are many places in the world 

where the parents have to pay for the textbooks. Do you have experience in operating in those countries, and do those textbook costs 

deter parents from sending their kids to school? 

Do—if you don’t have—I can go on to the next question if there 

isn’t—I don’t see anybody answering that—okay. Let me go on to 

the next one. 

Obviously, what we would want to see is a qualified teacher 

teaching a class of 20 or fewer students. We have got very limited 

resources here but we do have new technology. 

Are any of you aware of situations where computer programs, 

lectures, available on Tablet, through the Internet or on disc, have 

been made available to those who don’t have traditional classroom 

education available, and do you have any success stories or failure 

stories? Dr. Kuehnast. 

56

Ms. KUEHNAST. I am familiar with some of these new approaches 

to education. The U.S. Institute of Peace has online courses on 

peacebuilding, conflict resolution, looking at——

Mr. SHERMAN. Anything in local languages that helps kids learn 

how to read and basic skills? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. No, but it helps the teachers. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Okay. 

Ms. KUEHNAST. And it helps teachers prepare and they are being 

translated into key languages. We also have a global peacebuilding 

center focused on——

Mr. SHERMAN. I want to squeeze in one more question. My proposals to raise billions of dollars in tax revenue have insufficient 

Republican support. We don’t have a lot of money. 

Is there anything we are doing in the development and education 

area that you say, hey, that is not the best use of funds—maybe 

those funds could be steered somewhere else? Can you identify for 

us any programs that aren’t working or are misconceived? Yes, Ms. 

Khan. 

Ms. KHAN. Perhaps this could be something we could include in 

our—in the——

Mr. SHERMAN. I look—yes, I would like you all to respond for the 

record to those questions that time did not permit you to respond 

to orally, and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. We will go now to Mr. Gerry Connolly. But 

first, will the gentleman yield, Mr. Sherman? For one thought of 

a way to do this without tremendous expense would just be to take 

expired textbooks here in the United States that are effective texts, 

ship them back in some of the empty shipping containers that you 

and I have talked about, going back to South Asia, but use them 

and then have an ongoing program to do this. 

That is something that could be done at minimal cost. Those 

textbooks otherwise would have to be destroyed here in the United 

States. And yet they are very effective, you know, for teaching any 

number of disciplines. Maybe that is something we could work on 

as we move forward. 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. And I have a number of schools you can send 

them to. 

Chairman ROYCE. There we go. We just have to know who to 

work with. Let us go to Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. The title of 

this hearing is ‘‘Women’s Education: Promoting Development, 

Countering Radicalization.’’ Is there clear correlative evidence, Dr. 

Mirahmadi, that the education of women helps counter 

radicalization? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. There have been a number of studies which I 

cite to in my written testimony from the OSCE, from Naureen 

Chowdhury Fink and the Center for Global Security, also for the 

Pakistan Center for Peace Studies. 

There are a number of studies about the importance and the correlation between women being educated and preventing the 

radicalization of their children. Now, is it a causal link? I am not—

I can’t speak to that. But there are a number of studies that talk 

about the importance of that. 

57

Mr. CONNOLLY. To what extent does the promise of education get 

dashed on the shoals of other cultural barriers? For example, you 

could have broad-based education in Saudi Arabia but they are still 

not going to drive. You know, there will still be blatant discrimination in the workplace. Opportunities will be thwarted. You will—

you know, your social comportment will be highly regulated. 

To what extent does in some ways education either undermine 

that system or get terribly thwarted by cultural norms that seem 

by Western standards to hold women back, to deny them opportunity and integration into the broader society? 

Ms. MIRAHMADI. Well, I think one of the important points at the 

topic of this discussion was about how they could prevent 

radicalization. So educated women for sure can be the first line of 

defense for their husbands and their children and their families. 

So it is very important that they understand the warning signs 

of radicalization and then be empowered with the tools to respond. 

So in that field, in particular, an education is vital. It is critical. 

In terms of the larger socio-cultural dynamics, it is important to 

push some of those limits. I think moving into the 21st century by 

empowering women and giving them more space—more public 

space to express themselves and to be educated, to get jobs, to be 

involved in politics, we are going to push some of those social cultural barriers, and I think that is a good thing. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I probably do too but to what extent—I am trying 

to look at ourselves——

Ms. MIRAHMADI. And I believe Pakistani women believe that too. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. But to what extent, and feel free, other panelists as well, but to what extent is that a culturally-bound norm 

on our part? To what extent are—the very thing you just asserted, 

to what extent is that a Western norm being interposed on other 

cultures? Yes, Ms. Khan. 

Ms. KHAN. Education is a human right for all, not based on gender. But everyone has a right to education and yes, there are cultural barriers to it and cultural constraints in certain contexts. But 

at the same time, it is the right of women to get education. 

So we must pursue that no matter what. I think it has been 

mentioned a few times by all of us that there is a role for men in 

making sure that women are able to get their education and so 

when we are coming up against a barrier, right, it is not just for 

women to fight on the behalf of women. 

You also need the support of all of community and all of society, 

which includes the men. Men can actually be some of the loudest 

voices to make sure that women do have access to education and 

all other types of opportunities as well. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And that is—part two is what I am particularly—it seems to me—I would agree with you about education, but 

we also have to add opportunity because otherwise what I am focused on is we have a whole educated class who can’t go anywhere 

because these other social cultural barriers prevent opportunity. 

If you are going to have education you got to have opportunity 

that goes with it. Otherwise, I think you have a very volatile, unhappy mix. 

Ms. KHAN. Yes. Yes, and I think part of it is also the types of 

education because, you know, we can talk about standard primary, 

58

secondary, tertiary education. But there is also a place for vocational skills and actually skills in terms of things like managing a 

business—how to actually start your own business. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. 

Ms. KHAN. Actually a skill set which can be used to create opportunities, and so that also has to be part of that education mix, 

which is very functional skill building. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Dr. Kuehnast, did you wish to comment? 

Ms. KUEHNAST. I would just say that education is a long-term investment in long-term change in societies, whether it is locally or 

globally, and it is something that is an investment. And so sometimes, as you have pointed out, cultural norms create barriers for 

opportunities. 

But it is a long-term effort to change those norms. I think we see 

that in the last century the kinds of norms that have changed as 

a result of women’s education including, in our own country 100 

years ago this year, the right to vote. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes. We don’t want to have a whole bunch of 

Ph.D.s with nothing to do. Thank you so much for being here 

today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you very much, Mr. Connolly. I thank 

the members. 

We are adjourning this hearing but we want to really express our 

appreciation, Mr. Keating and I, to our three witnesses who travelled some distance to be with us today and we very much appreciate their testimony. 

[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 

Chairman ROYCE. So the hearing is adjourned, and now we are 

going to call the committee to order for a different purpose. We will 

give our witnesses 1 minute to get their paperwork together. 

The committee will come to order. Pursuant to notice, we meet 

today to mark up H.R. 3583, the Malala Yousafzai Scholarship Act. 

Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit statements for the record and to put in any extraneous materials on this 

bill in for the record, and I now call up the bill, H.R. 3583. The 

clerk will report the bill. 

Ms. MARTER. H.R. 3583, To expand the number of scholarships 

available to Pakistani women under the Merit and Needs-Based 

Scholarship Program. 

Chairman ROYCE. Without objection, the bill is considered read. 

To help expedite our consideration, I am going to go ahead and 

call up the bipartisan amendments previously sent to your offices 

and before we proceed to the opening statements so that members 

may speak once on the entire package. 

So I ask unanimous consent that the following amendments, 

which members have before them, be considered en bloc—the bipartisan amendment, Number 42, in the nature of a substitute offered by Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, the author of this bill, and the Connolly 

Amendment, Number 100. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. I now recognize myself to speak on these 

items. 

We just heard today how even a modest investment in educating 

women and girls in the developing world and in areas beset by poverty and radicalism in particular, can pay long-term dividends that 

help stabilize societies, promote market-based economic growth, 


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and advance U.S. national security objectives. This is why H.R. 

3583 is so important. 

I want to thank Chairman Emeritus Ros-Lehtinen for her leadership on this issue. I have for years traveled to South Asia and expressed concern about the appalling state of education in places 

like Afghanistan and Pakistan and the subsequent rise, particularly in these Deobindi madrasas that prey upon the 

disenfranchised, that breed radicalism, and have been so difficult 

to close. 

There are 600 of them in particular that are churning out a new 

graduating class every year that is destabilizing the region and a 

threat, frankly, to the hopes and aspirations of the people in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

The situation for women in areas where access to education is actively suppressed is particularly grim. In Pakistan’s North-West 

Frontier Province and in Balochistan, for example, literacy among 

women is between just 3 and 8 percent. 

I myself had the opportunity to tour a very effective school up 

in the North-West Frontier some years ago. But on my following 

trip back I had found that the Taliban had targeted it and destroyed it. It is therefore fitting that the bill before us would be 

named for Malala Yousafzai, for her, because at the age of 15 she 

dared, of course, to defy the Taliban. 

She was brutally assaulted for her efforts and ultimately inspired 

a generation of women and girls to demand their fundamental 

right to be educated. H.R. 3583 requires USAID to award at least 

half of the scholarships made available through the Merit and 

Needs-Based Scholarship Program in Pakistan, which the United 

States supports, to women. 

It simply provides support and policy guidance. That is the intent of this bill. I am particularly pleased that the substitute 

amendment contains language emphasizing the importance of consulting with and leveraging investments by the private sector and 

Pakistani diaspora communities in the United States, who themselves put so much of their own hard-earned money in to support 

education both at the medical school level and at other institutions 

of learning across Pakistan. 

Tapping into this vast pool of expertise and resources will prove 

invaluable, and I thank the ranking member and Subcommittee 

Chairman Ros-Lehtinen both for working with me to press this 

point and I urge members to support the amended bill and recognize the ranking member, Mr. Eliot Engel of New York, for his remarks. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I concur 

with everything that you said. I am very pleased that we had this 

important hearing this morning and I am very proud of the role 

that our colleague, Mr. Keating, played, first, in bringing these 

hearings and then in participating in them. And thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, for your leadership. 

Six hundred million women around the world are illiterate, nearly twice the number of men, and in rural Pakistan only one-third 

of women can read. These scholarships are so important. It is so 

important for the United States to put our money where our mouth 

is in helping women in Pakistan. 

76

The overall gender disparity is even more pronounced in higher 

education. Only two countries of 130 measured by the 2013 Millennium Development Goals report achieved gender parity in the area 

and these disparities are very costly for women. 

They marginalize them politically, reduce their employment opportunities, and increase their vulnerability. President Obama has 

said that if a country is educating its girls, if women have equal 

rights, that country is going to move forward. But if women are oppressed and abused and illiterate they are going to fall behind, and 

studies show that he is correct. 

So every year of primary school boosts a girl’s future wages by 

10 to 20 percent, and every year of secondary school increases that 

earning potential by 15 to 25 percent. 

The World Bank’s top economist has said that financing women’s 

education yields the highest rate of return of any investment in the 

developing world. These facts alone justify the efforts of the U.S. 

to promote female education worldwide. 

A recent IMF study also found that if females were working in 

the same proportion as men we would see a 34-percent increase in 

the gross domestic product of Egypt, 27 percent in India, 9 percent 

in Japan, and even a 5-percent increase in the United States. 

There is another compelling reason for the U.S. to support female 

education around the world. Educated women and girls are proven 

to be some of the most powerful weapons in the fight against violent extremism. 

The Taliban—we all know the story—exposed their fear of educated girls when they tried to silence Malala Yousafzai. Malala’s 

incredible example is a reminder that females are ready to lead all 

over the world when they have the opportunity to go to school. 

When girls and women are educated they are better able to combat extremism in their roles as mothers, community members, 

teachers and activists and, simply put, the battle for hearts and 

minds cannot be won without the participation of educated women 

and girls. 

That is why this bill that we are marking up today is so important. It is clear that there are numerous tangible benefits to educating women and girls. But we must also remember that the right 

to an education is a basic fundamental human right enshrined in 

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

And yet, too many young girls are still stuck working at home 

during the school day. Too many are still being forced out of school 

and into early marriages. 

So we must ensure that promoting education for girls and women 

abroad remains a priority for the U.S. As remarkable young women 

like Malala have demonstrated, when education empowers women 

to shape their own destinies extremism is doomed. 

So I am very delighted to support this legislation and support the 

amendments that are also being brought forth to perfect this legislation, and I am glad once again that we are doing so in a bipartisan way. 

I thank Chairman Royce and everyone who has worked so hard 

on this legislation and make it a reality. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, and we want to thank the ranking 

member for his work on this legislation and amendments into the 

77

bill. Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the pending items? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman ROYCE. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, then we will go to Mr. 

Connolly and then to Mr. Cicilline. 

Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you so very much for holding this markup on this important issue. H.R. 3583 is a bipartisan measure and the House companion of Senate Bill 120, sponsored by Senator Boxer. 

This bill will mandate that USAID award at least 50 percent of 

scholarships to women in Pakistan under the Merit and NeedsBased Scholarship Program from 2014 to 2016. 

I would also like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, as well as my good 

friend, Mr. Engel, for making the bill stronger, for making the bill 

more efficient, and I also would like to offer my support to the 

amendment offered by my good friend. 

And I hear that he was a former Senate staffer—I am not sure 

if that is true—Mr. Connolly from Virginia, requiring USAID to 

look at the number of women participants who have dropped out 

of the program due to retaliation. 

This issue is very near and dear to my heart. As one of the few 

women on this committee and someone with a background in education, having been a Florida-certified teacher, I know firsthand 

the importance of education for our youth. 

We have seen that greater access to education for women leads 

to increased respect for human rights, a rise in prosperity and wellbeing, and a more peaceful and stable society. 

Stories like those of Malala, who defied the brutal Taliban and 

became an inspiration for young people worldwide, show that education is the most important factor in empowering young girls to 

become successful members of society and protecting them from the 

ignorance that enables abuse and radicalization. 

Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman, for this markup. Thank 

you, Mr. Engel, as well. Thank you, sirs. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, I thank Mr. 

Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

you and the ranking member for your leadership on this issue and 

for the hearing we just had—a very thoughtful hearing. 

I also want to thank my good friend, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for her 

leadership on this issue and her commitment, and I am particularly impressed with her perspicacity, Mr. Chairman, that she actually knows my background that I was once a—I was once a very 

important person. 

I was a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

But I do want to, seriously, thank all involved in this bill. 

I think it is really important, as we just heard in this hearing, 

education is transformative. It is the key to changing the status of 

women. It is the key to providing opportunity, and we need to be 

all in when it comes to education. 

So I thank my friend for accepting a slight modification in the 

reporting requirement to capture data about women who have been 

forced out of education because of retaliation, and I enthusiastically 

78

support the bill in front of us and, again, I thank the chair and 

ranking member for their leadership. I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Mr. Cicilline, you were seeking time. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to begin by thanking you and Ranking Member 

Engel for convening a markup on this important issue and for the 

hearing we just had, and for continuing to highlight the pressing 

issues of educational access, opportunity, and equality. 

I also want to thank Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, our chair 

emeritus, for sponsoring the legislation that we are considering 

today and also thank and acknowledge my colleague, Congressman 

Keating, for his work on this issue. 

Every child deserves the opportunity to obtain a quality education in the best environment possible and to be given the opportunity to achieve their full potential. As we work in the United 

States to help provide support for qualified teachers, better technology in the classrooms, safe school literacy programs, and greater 

community engagement, we must not forget that we belong to a 

global economy. 

Educated children and young people help drive the future of our 

economy and the future of our world. 

Unfortunately, as we know, girls and women are too often left 

behind. And although we are making progress here in closing the 

achievement gap in the United States, girls and women in many 

parts of the world still face significant barriers to education. 

In particular today, we honor Malala, who faced threats from the 

Taliban and ultimately a nearly deadly attack, in her relentless 

pursuit of an education. We must do everything we can to increase 

opportunities available to women and girls, especially in countries 

that are struggling to achieve peace and democracy. 

Undoubtedly, these countries will benefit from their civic involvement and so will the world, and so I thank everyone who has 

worked so hard on this and I yield back. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Cicilline. 

Does Ms. Frankel have an additional second-degree amendment? 

Ms. FRANKEL. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think there is 

an amendment in the—I am sorry. 

Chairman ROYCE. There is. There is, and the clerk will report 

the amendment. 

Ms. MARTER. Amendment to the amendment in the nature of a 

substitute to H.R. 3583 offered by Ms. Frankel of Florida. At the 

proper place in the bill insert: ‘‘It is the sense of Congress that recipients of these scholarships commit to improving their local communities.’’

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. And the Chair recognizes the author for 5 minutes to explain the amendment. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I probably would have liked do something stronger but I think 

this will get the point across. We heard from our very distinguished 

and articulate panel this morning that I think for each of them it 

was their opinion that these scholarships could be more effective if 

the recipients would pay it forward to their communities and with 

service and mentoring, and I think today, where our resources are 

so much in demand and so important and so scarce, that we have 

the most effective use of them. 

So that is why I offer this amendment, and I hope that perhaps 

at a later date, and in a bipartisan manner, we can follow up with 

USAID with a letter or some conversations on how they could implement this. 

Chairman ROYCE. I think that sounds very appropriate. 

Do any other members seek recognition to speak on the amendment? Hearing no further requests for recognition, the question occurs on the amendment. All those in favor say aye. 

[Chorus of ayes.] 

All those opposed, no. 

[No response.] 

In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it and the amendment 

is agreed to. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Mr. Chair, may I speak on behalf of the——

Chairman ROYCE. The overall underlying bill? 

Ms. FRANKEL. Yes. 

Chairman ROYCE. Very briefly. 

Ms. FRANKEL. Yes. 

Chairman ROYCE. All right. Then the gentlelady is granted time. 

Ms. FRANKEL. I will be very brief, just say thank you. I want to 

thank you, the ranking member, of course, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, who 

I work very closely with, our great—one of our great leaders from 

Florida, and I am proud to be a co-sponsor of this legislation. 

And just as it has been repeated again, this legislation is named 

after a young lady who is inspiring to all of us, and I hope that 

these scholarships will bring us many more Malalas into society. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman ROYCE. Well put, Ms. Frankel. 

Okay. Are there any other members besides Ms. Frankel that 

want to speak on this amendment? Hearing no further requests for 


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recognition, the question occurs on the en bloc amendment. All 

those in favor, say aye. 

[Chorus of ayes.] 

All those opposed, no. 

[No response.] 

In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it in the en bloc 

amendments. Ros-Lehtinen 42 and Connolly 100 and the Frankel 

amendment are agreed to. 

The question now occurs on agreeing to House H.R. 3583 as 

amended. All those in favor, say aye. 

[Chorus of ayes.] 

All those opposed, no. 

[No response.] 

In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it and the bill as 

amended is agreed to, and without objection 3583 as amended is 

ordered favorably reported as a single amendment in the nature of 

a substitute. 

Staff is directed to make any technical and conforming changes 

and, members, that concludes our business for today, and I want 

to thank Ranking Member Engel and all of our committee members 

for their contributions and assistance to this legislation. 

The committee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:19 p.m. the committee was adjourned.] 

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