Secretary General, National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, Egypt

Moushira Khattab is secretary-general of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, a position she has held since November 1999, and the special representative of the president of Egypt on children’s issues. She is also a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child; a member of Egypt’s Radio and Television Union’s Board of Trustees and chair of its Sub-Committee on Family and Children; chair of the National Committee to Prevent Violence Against Children; a board member of the Amsterdam-based Child Helpline International; a board member and vice president of the Montreal-based International Bureau for Children’s Rights; and chair of the Middle East and North Africa Steering Committee on Violence Against Children Ms. Khattab has served as representative of the Committee on the Rights of the Child at meetings on the reform of the UN Treaty Bodies System; a member of the Advisory Group of the International Better Care Network for Children Without Parental Care; and chair of the Intergovernmental Expert Group mandated to prepare UN Guidelines on Justice for Child Witnesses and Victims of Crimes. She is also a regular lecturer on human rights to various groups of professionals within the framework of the UNDP initiative on capacity building in human rights.

As a diplomat, Ms. Khattab served as assistant minister for foreign affairs for cultural international relations (1999), ambassador to South Africa and non-resident to Botswana and Lesotho (1994-99), ambassador to the Czech Republic and non-resident to Slovakia (1992-94), and in the embassies of Egypt to Australia, Hungary and Austria.