Miller-Muro described as tireless advocate for immigrant women’s rights.

Layli Miller-Muro, who founded Tahirih in 1997, will be honored as part of UNA-NCA’s annual Human Rights Awards Reception.

Deysi Gonzalez’s diary begins with this sentence: “On July 3, 2002, I met the man I thought would be the love of my life.” Instead, she continues in neat Spanish script, the handsome acquaintance who courted her in Guatemala turned into a possessive bully who stalked and beat her.

Society is in a stage of adolescence, and equality between women and men is a necessary condition for growth, Tahirih Founder and Executive Director Layli Miller-Muro told an audience Oct. 15 at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

As an ambitious young woman in rural southern Afghanistan, Fouzia Durrani was headed for trouble.

“It’s so nice that those of us that have gone through such difficult times have a chance to get together and celebrate something,” a client in Houston said.

The two women met for the first time last week at a sleek Georgetown hotel, where they were speakers at a glittering charity dinner. They shook hands and hugged across a vast gulf of culture, geography and faith: one a devout Muslim from West Africa with her hair carefully hidden under a tight scarf, the other a gregarious South Asian in a stylish sari and costume earrings.