[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S8672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IN MEMORY OF FERN HOLLAND

   Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, I rise today in honor of the 
memory of a special woman, Fern Holland, who left the comfort of her 
work as a lawyer in private practice to serve the poor, the oppressed, 
and the marginalized. She volunteered for the Peace Corps in Namibia, 
Africa, and worked with the American Refugee Committee to set up legal 
clinics in Guinea. Finally, she worked for the U.S. Agency for 
International Development and the Coalition Provisional Authority as a 
human rights lawyer organizing women's groups and human rights groups 
in south central Iraq. Fern is someone who deserves to be remembered 
both for what she did in life and what she gave in life in service to 
our country.
  On March 9, 2004, she was brutally gunned down south of Baghdad, near 
the city of Hilla. Her friend and colleague, Salwa Oumashi, was also 
killed. Fern worked tirelessly to set up women's centers in south 
central Iraq. She was working for our Government to provide safe places 
for Iraqi women to discuss and pursue active roles in their 
communities. During her time in Iraq, she wanted to give women in 
places like Hilla and Karbala a voice because she feared they might be 
forgotten otherwise.
  Iraqi women are struggling every day to participate in the rebuilding 
of their country, but they confront many obstacles, not least of which 
include the daily challenges to their own personal security. Today, the 
centers Fern helped to establish are playing a crucial role in the 
women's movement in Iraq. Fern knew the danger that she faced, but she 
wanted to volunteer her services to further democracy and freedom and 
to help Iraqi women come out from behind the walls of oppression in 
order to take their rightful place in a new Iraq.
  Fern was in constant e-mail contact with many of us on Capitol Hill. 
She wrote about the dreams of the Iraqi women she met and what needed 
to be done to make those dreams come true. Of Fern her Iraqi colleagues 
wrote: ``Fern lost her life, but won our love and this is unique in 
life. We must follow Fern in the same way and show to the murderers 
that we will walk on in her spirit.''
  Fern Holland held two core beliefs: that all people deserve basic 
human rights, and that one person really can make a difference in the 
lives of others--and she did.

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