A prominent Muslim activist and women’s rights campaigner has denied enabling sexual harassment in the workplace and claimed that a recent allegation by a former colleague, who said she covered up sexual harassment, is part of a smear campaign to discredit her.
Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American who came to prominence when she co-chaired the 2017 Women’s March held in response to the election of Donald Trump as president, said the allegations about her behaviour made in a report in a right-wing blog were false.
Asmi Fathelbab, who worked under Ms Sarsour at the Arab American Association of New York, claimed in the Daily Caller on Sunday that an office volunteer repeatedly assaulted her and followed her to and from work in a series of incidents in 2009.
Ms Fathelbab alleged that when she reported the harassment to Ms Sarsour, she was dismissed as an attention seeker and body-shamed.
"She called me a liar because ‘something like this didn’t happen to women who looked like me',” Ms Fathelbab told the publication. “How dare I interrupt her TV news interview in the other room with my ‘lies'.”
Ms Fathelbab said that she would scream when Majed Seif, the volunteer accused of harassing her, would sneak up on her, which could be heard all over the office.
“He would sneak up on me during times when no one was around, he would touch me, you could hear me scream at the top of my lungs,” Ms Fathelbab said.
After allegedly being ignored by Ms Sarsour, she said she went to the association’s board of directors, who also dismissed the allegations on the basis that the volunteer was a “God-fearing man”, who was “always at the mosque”.
In an interview with Buzzfeed News in which she provided statements and e-mails to support her case, Ms Sarsour said the initial report was another smear from one of her many critics.
However, she had been concerned by how far the story had reached after Mr Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, retweeted the original claims.
“Anti-Semitic, terrorist sympathiser, supporter of female genital mutilation — every week they come up with some new stuff about me,” Ms Sarsour said. “But when the president’s son is tweeting about me, that’s serious stuff.”
Ms Sarsour said no allegations of groping had been made by Ms Fathelbab and that she had found “no substantial evidence or any testimonies from anyone” about the alleged accusations.
“The exact words were, ‘He makes me feel uncomfortable',” Ms Sarsour told Buzzfeed. “There was nothing about touching or groping. There’s no evidence, no e-mail, she can pull out where she ever gave those claims to us.”
In response to the charge that she “fat-shamed” Ms Fathelbab, Ms Sarsour said that, as a mother of two daughters, that was not the sort of behaviour she would engage in.
Ms Sarsour has been supported by fellow Women’s March activists, who dismissed the initial report as an attack on her character.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
