PROFILE OF YASMIN BUSRAN-LAO (LP)

IN 2005 YASMIN BUSRAN-LAO was granted the Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Fellowship for
Professional Development Award given by the American embassy and the Benigno S.
Aquino Foundation. The award came as a surprise to the woman who had repeatedly
spurned similar nominations by conveniently forgetting to submit her credentials.

“I never expected to be publicly recognized for what I do,” she says. “Fighting for the rights
of Muslim women and other marginalized groups is something personal for me. I get
enough satisfaction helping people gain a certain control over their lives.”

What is not surprising is how this Psychology graduate of Far Eastern University came
upon her advocacy. Yasmin recalls how, as an 11-year-old probinsyana, she had to contend
with seatmates who would suddenly edge away when she was introduced before the class.

“Muslims were seen as devils, complete with tails and horns,” she recalls of the prejudice
and stigma she had to put up with when her family moved to Manila in 1972. Like
thousands of other families, they had to flee war-torn Marawi where private armies like the
Ilagas and Barracudas had established a reign of terror. Her father, too, had just been
appointed as the first Muslim judge in the Court of Appeals, and had to stay in Manila.

The experience, Yasmin says, made her conscious at an early age of the “impact of bigotry
and discrimination on human relationships, especially on dignity and communal harmony.”
It also made her a thorn in her mother's side. She recounts: “It was at the Quiapo mosque
where I met these women who were abandoned by their Iranian husbands. This was during
the time of Khomeini in Iran. The women were disowned by their families and kicked out of
their homes, so I decided to bring them with me. I was running some sort of a woman's
crisis center at home, and my mother could only shake her head.”

Soon, she was joining other activists when they visited Muslims in death row. “I just wanted
to know what was happening,” says Yasmin. It was an unusual show of spunk for one who
was only in her third year high school then.

Such dissonance ushered her into an existentialist phase at 16, when she studied the
Qur'an, Buddhism and other religions to find where some oppressive practices were
coming from. “They were not in the Qur'an, so why are Muslims embracing them?” she
asked.

The questions led her to establish the Al-Mujadilah Development Foundation (AMDF) in
1997, shortly after she attended the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women as a
representative of the feminist group PILIPINA. “In Beijing, I was able to interact with
Muslim women from other countries,” recounts Yasmin. “I realized that much of the Islamic
teachings we adhered to, particularly those pertaining to women, are not really what is in
the Qur'an, but rather cultural interpretations of Islam.”

What followed was intensive research on the situation of Muslim women-from their
domestic roles to reproductive health and poverty, from politics to the impact of armed
conflict. “This we did in response to allegations that gender issues are Western issues that
have no resonance in Muslim Moro communities,” says Yasmin.

Main advocacy

The Foundation was inspired by a Qur'anic verse, Al-Mujadilah (Qur'an verse 58), which,
depending on one's source, either means “The Woman who Pleads,” “The Woman who
Seeketh (Justice),” or “The Woman who Disputeth.”

The AMDF has been acknowledged by its partner networks for the significant role it plays
in Maranao society, the Bangsamoro struggle, and society in general.

As an institutional partner, Oxfam NOVIB, the Dutch organization for international aid, had
this to say about AMDF: “(It) has proven its worth in community organizing, convening of
civil society organizations, organizing youth clubs for high school students, breaking the
barriers with (Muslim) women theologians and other conservative sectors of the
community, capacitating local government units (LGUs) in mainstreaming gender and
pushing for the implementation of the gender and development (GAD) budget, legal
literacy and popularization of the Code of Muslim Personal Laws, and the construction of a
grassroots’ women training center. The AMDF has a good opportunity to further develop
its distinctive role in the Lanao Sur area as a community-based nongovernment
organization (NGO) advocating for women’s rights, peace and governance.

The Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute has been working with the AMDF since its
inception and has been supportive of its various initiatives on peace building in the region.
The AMDF is a member of civil society third party mediator for the declaration of ceasefire
and third party observer to the peace process undertaken by government and Moro Islamic
Liberation Front. It has created venues for the diverse civil society organizations to come
together, share perspectives and collaborate in addressing the various peace, governance,
poverty and other social issues confronting Maranao society. It has also trained LGU
officials on conflict resolution, negotiation, counseling and paralegal in selected
municipalities and their consequent organization into Barangay Justice Advocates
(BJAs).

PILIPINA recognizes AMDF as its affiliate institution in Lanao del Sur. As such, it
acknowledges its pioneering and unique contributions in advancing the discourse and
praxis of putting gender values and principles in the center of peacebuilding, right to self-
determination and governance efforts in the Bangsamoro homeland.
CO Multiversity, on the other hand, as the partner of AMDF in crafting its community-
based strategies, acknowledges the remarkable transformative processes the organization
has been able to catalyze as breakthroughs in Maranao culture as it makes a difference in
governance and electoral politics while taking stock of the challenges it has to face such
as (a) sustaining existing initiatives in people’s planning and decision making process; (b)
maximizing participation in the barangay development planning and management; (c)
participating in the educational processes for electoral reforms; and (d) sustaining
initiatives on gender mainstreaming.

In 2007 Yasmin also cofounded the Nisa Ul-Haqq Fi Bangsamoro (Women for Truth and
Justice in the Bangsamoro) to respond to the need of Bangsamoro women for a deeper
understanding of Islam from a feminist perspective and reclaim the spaces and voices of
women in Islamic discourse and praxis. Under her leadership as its current chair, the
foundation has initiated the following activities: (a) conduct of study group sessions and
round-table discussions on Islam and gender; (b) conduct of evidence-based researches to
address the issues of Bangsamoro women such as early and forced marriages, polygamy,
divorce, inheritance, reproductive health and rights, political participation, and economic
empowerment; (c) engagement with the regional government of the Autonomous Region
of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on gender-responsive governance; and (d) collaborate
with the ARMM regional government and the Philippine Commission on Women on the
development of a GAD Code for ARMM.