Pop-star Andy Grammer brought the room to its feet at the 19th annual Tahirih Justice Center gala in Washington DC held on April 14th.

“She gives us all the opportunity to be here, it’s very rare,” a choked up, teary-eyed Grammer said, after performing for the audience and introducing the founder of the organization Layli Miller-Muro. “We all want to help. This is Layli.”

Left: Payam Zamani, Founder & CEO of One Planet Group; Center: Layli Miller, Founder & Executive Director of Tahirih Justice Center; Right: Andy Grammer, Musician & Record Producer at the 19th Annual Tahirih Justice Center Gala

Almost 20 years ago, in June of 1996 a law student from the American University Law Clinic by the name of Layli Miller-Muro took on and won the groundbreaking asylum case of 17-year-old female, Fauziya Kassindja. At the time Kassindja, who had fled from her tribe in Togo to free herself from a forced polygamous marriage and a procedure culturally known as Kakiya (female genital mutilation), was legally granted asylum in the US. This set the precedent, as the first time an asylum seeker gained refugee status for gender-based persecution.

It was a two-year fight for Miller-Muro whose case ended up in the highest immigration appellate court to make this massive shift in the law. After this win, and co-authoring the New York Times best selling “Do They Hear You When You Cry,” Miller-Muro went on to found The Tahirih Justice Center, a non-profit organization that provides free legal services and advocacy for women and girls fleeing human rights abuses.

“Our job at the Tahirih Justice Center is small,” Miller-Muro said addressing the gala audience. “When we get involved in a case it’s after women have heroically fled everything that is comfortable, their home, their culture, their country, they have traveled at their life’s peril to get here.”

Indeed the journey of the women the Center helps is fierce. And sadly their arrival in the US can often be another form of trauma. “Then when they are here they are put into detention facilities,” continued Miller-Muro. “Which are jails and we do that in mass for people arriving at our border.”

Connecting these women to the center is another step that does not come easily. “Somehow they make their way to an official, they courageously tell their story, they somehow get referred to the Tahirih Justice Center, they call us, they probably have to call us multiple times,” said Miller-Muro. “Then, they demand justice. But the Tahirih Justice Center is only able to help one out of every four women and girls who come to us for help.”

Miller-Muro later announced that the Center is planning an expansion to alleviate this problem.

“I am very excited to announce for the first time that for the last couple of years silently we have been working on raising $10million so that we can increase by 250% the number of women and girls we serve.  We have now raised $6.5million... In the next few weeks many of you will receive correspondence from us announcing the public phase of our expansion growth campaign and inviting you to help us raise the remaining $3.5million so that we do not have to say no to three out of every four women and girls who come to us for protection.  The Tahirih Justice Center is effective, we are efficient and we are replicable.  In addition to DC we now have offices in Houston and Baltimore. There is no good reason why we can’t have offices around the country.”

One Planet Group has adopted the Tahirih Justice Center as the primary nonprofit that it sponsors. Payam Zamani, the CEO of One Planet Group, is also a board member at Tahirih Justice who has been advocating for all companies whether small or large, start up or established to commit to sacrificial philanthropic efforts. Zamani published an article not long ago on the very subject: Universal Philanthropy: Even Cash-Strapped StartUps Should Give Back

“The Tahirih Justice Centre is inspired by a quotation in the Baha’i Faith based on the Principle of the equality of men and women that describes humanity as a bird with two wings,” explained Zamani, “One wing represents that of the female and the other represents that of the male. Until both of these wings are equally strong, the bird of civilization is handicapped.”

Layli ended her remarks at the gala with the following inspiring words:

“I hope that you … that men and women are both in this equally together. Because we are both attached to the same bird and we are both flopping around on the ground together and we are both unable to soar to our highest potential. We are also both unique we are different, you can’t stick the right wing of the bird on its left side and you can’t stick the left wing of the bird on its right side. But we have to be equally strong. We have to be perfectly coordinated, and until we get that right, civilization will be unable to soar to its fullest potential.”

To learn more about the Tahirih Justice Center please visit: www.tahirih.org