Betty Mahmoody

Betty Mahmoody is an American author best known for her book, Not Without My Daughter, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She is the President and co-founder of One World: For Children, an organization that promotes understanding between cultures and strives to offer security and protection to children of bi-cultural marriages. She was instrumental in the development of international kidnaping legislation which was adopted in her home state of Michigan. As an expert in the field of international kidnaping, Mahmoody has acted as a consultant to the State Department on the subject.

In 1984, she, her husband, Sayyed Bozorg "Moody" Mahmoody, and their daughter Mahtob traveled to Iran for what was supposed to be a two week visit. However, Moody arbitrarily refused to allow his family to return to the United States and became domineering and abusive. Although born in the United States, Iranian law claimed their daughter Mahtob as an Iranian citizen, who could not leave the country without her father's permission. Faced with the fact that she would only be allowed to leave if she left her daughter with her husband, she stayed in Iran for 18 months. Eventually, she escaped her husband and Iran, crossing into Turkey with her daughter; reaching the U.S. embassy, from where they were returned to the United States.

Mrs. Mahmoody's ordeal is recounted in the 1991 film, Not Without My Daughter in which Sally Field played Betty Mahmoody. A few years later, Alexis Kouros, a Finnish writer born in Iran, directed a documentary called Without My Daughter, reflecting her husband's point of view, in response to the 1991 movie.