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Tribute to Mary F. Diaz

Senator Edward Kennedy (MA)

Mr. President, last month, this Nation suffered the tragic loss of one of its most effective and most compassionate advocates for women and children throughout the world. Mary Diaz was only 43 when she died on February 12 in New York after a long battle of cancer. I know she will be profoundly missed by all who knew her and worked with her and were helped by her.

For the last 10 years, Mary was executive director of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, an affiliate of the International Rescue Committee. She was there whenever she was needed and wherever she was needed--in Serbia or Angola or Rwanda or Pakistan or Nepal or Haiti and in many other places, often putting her own safety at risk to see firsthand the hardships of women and children displaced by war or fleeing persecution.

After each of her travels, Mary would return and eloquently share the stories of those she saw who needed help the most. She met with lawmakers and government agencies to urge them to respond. She worked with President Clinton to create a fund for refugee women in Bosnia. Visiting Tanzania, she worked to change the rules allowing Burundian women to distribute food with the men. Even in the all too short time she had, Mary inspired us all with her dedicated and tireless work on behalf of the disenfranchised.


It is easy to see where Mary learned her passion for helping others. Her father was a doctor and her mother is a nurse. Her two brothers are doctors. One sister is an inner-city teacher and another is a librarian. After studying international relations at Brown University, Mary worked for a television station in Philadelphia and volunteered in her free time to help refugees settle in the city. As her interest in
helping refugees grew, she enrolled at Harvard to pursue a master's degree in international education. A few years later, she became director of refugee and immigration services for Catholic Charities in Boston.
She was always there to help. Once, when 112 Haitian children arrived in Boston on a military plane, Mary was there to greet them with a friendly face. The children had lost contact with their families. They were barefoot, in a country they had never seen before. Mary comforted them, and took them to eat at a local restaurant called Buzzy's Fabulous Roast Beef. After that, she took them to a local swimming pool, and then she began the effort to reunite them with their families or place them in foster care. Stories like this about Mary are well known to all her colleagues.

Last year, Mary was honored for her work in protecting the rights of refugee women by Rudd Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees. When Commissioner Lubbers learned of Mary's death, he spoke for us all when he said that it ``left a void in the refugee and humanitarian world, where she touched many lives.''

Sadly, Mary died too young. But she made the world a better place, and we will always have our warm memories of her and her inspiring legacy to guide us as we carry on her mission.

Senator Tom Carper (DE)

Mr. President, I would like to set aside a moment to reflect on the life of Ms. Mary Frances Diaz upon her passing in February. Mary was a woman who made a remarkable contribution toward improving the lives of refugee women, children, and adolescents around the world. She was a truly selfless woman who dedicated her life to others.

Mary was born in Newport News, VA. She spent her childhood in Pottstown, PA, before going to Brown University, where she graduated with a major in international relations in 1982. After working for several years at WPVI television news station in Philadelphia, she returned to school and received a master's degree in international education from Harvard University in 1988.

But Mary's passion and life mission was refugees. While she was still at Harvard she began working for Catholic Charities in Boston, and upon graduation became director of refugee and immigration services there.

In 1994, at the age of 33, Mary became executive director of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, an organization that helps some of the most vulnerable people on Earth. For 10 years, Mary traveled to the world's trouble spots, dodging minefields, tsetse flies, and wars on her mission to help refugee women and children reclaim their lives. She went on fact-finding missions to places such as Serbia, Angola, Rwanda, Nepal, Pakistan, Haiti, and Colombia to talk to uprooted women and children firsthand.

Back in the United States and in Geneva, she would plead their cases before the United Nations and lobby lawmakers and relief agencies to improve their conditions. She also fought for the rights of people claiming asylum in the United States.

Her advocacy led to concrete results. After she reported on the situation in Bosnia, the Clinton administration provided a fund to help refugee women rebuild their lives. During a visit to Tanzania, she got the rules changed to allow Burundian women as well as men to distribute food to fellow refugees. As a result, many more women and their children got their food rations. After a visit to Afghanistan in 2002, Mary initiated a fund for programs for Afghan women.

Under Mary's leadership, the Women's Commission grew from a small organization with a staff of 4 and a budget of $425,000 to one with more than 20 staff and a budget of $4 million. She believed the international community had a responsibility to help women and children who had been uprooted by war and persecution, and in her quiet, elegant way, used her eloquence and strong persuasive powers to persuade policy makers to change policies and programs.

Mary , who was 43 years old, died of pancreatic cancer. She leaves behind her longtime partner, Tom Ferguson of New York City; her mother, Bertha Diaz of Pottstown, PA; two brothers, Dr. Philip Diaz of Columbus, OH, and Dr. Joseph Diaz of Barrington, RI; and two sisters, Theresa Diaz of Reading, PA, and Bernadette Diaz of Oak Park, IL. She also leaves behind innumerable friends and colleagues.

Mary's legacy will live on in the lives of the refugees around the world whose lives she helped improve and in the work of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. I rise today to commemorate Mary Diaz , to celebrate her too-short life and to offer her family, friends, and colleagues our support. She will be sorely missed.