Revolutions in the Arab World : what is at stake for women's rights?
By FIDH on Wednesday 9 March 2011, 19:00 - RESPECT! / RESPECTER! - Permalink
"No democracy without equality" was the slogan of women participating in the Tunisian revolution. In the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, women participated massively in demonstrations, on blogs and social networks. Women are also demonstrating in Bahrain, Yemen and Jordan and are active in women's rights organisations across the region.
"We must now be vigilant in order to ensure that women participate fully in the new political landscapes", underlined Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President. "We are deeply concerned that there is not a single woman on the new Egyptian Constitutional Committee. This is unacceptable".
What are women calling for? Do the transitions underway present new opportunities for women's rights? Will their voices be heard? Will legislation in these countries finally advance towards full equality between the sexes? Will the reservations these states have entered to the Convention on the elimination of discrimination against women finally be withdrawn ?
FIDH seeks to shed light on these questions in the dossier published today on the FIDH website, developed in partnership with Égalité (www.egalite-infos.fr).
While women participated massively in the struggle for de-colonisation in the region, for example in Algeria, they were largely forgotten following independence. They must not be forgotten in the aftermath of the current uprisings. Throughout the Arab world, the fight for equality led by women's rights organisations is more important than ever. There are unique opportunities to be seized to advance respect for their rights in the region.
FIDH relays the voices of those who have fought for years for women's rights in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria and Morocco.
Articles will be published throughout the month of March on the FIDH
website, to ensure that the rights of those representing half the population of
the Arab world are not forgotten. And because, as Sophie Bessis, FIDH Deputy
Secretary General, says : " A democracy without equality of the sexes will be a
truncated democracy."
Interview with Amal Basha, Chairperson of the Sisters' Arab Forum
for Human Rights (SAF), Yemen
Interview with Leila Hammarneh, Projects Director, Arab Women Organization, Jordan
Comments
nd at the mixer afterward I met a student who invited me to walk her home and have a Coke with her and her mother. It was my first foray into one of the endless apartment buildings that house the vast majority of New Yorkers, poor to rich. There was no elevator, so we had to walk up several flights to reach her place. It seemed so small to <a href="http://www.borseufficialeitalia.com..."><Louis Vuitton Outlet Online</strong></a> me then, accustomed as I was to Arkansas one-story houses <a href="http://www.doudounemonclerboutique2..."><strong>Doudoune Moncler Homme with yards, even for people of modest means. All I remember about the encounter is that the girl and her mother seemed incredibly nice, and I was amazed that you could develop such outgoing personalities living in such confined spaces.
After I said good night, I was on my own in the big city. I hailed a cab and asked to go to Times Square. I had never seen so many bright neon lights. The place was loud, fast, and throbbing with life, some of it on the seamy side. I saw my first streetwalker, hitting on a hapless archetype: a pathetic-looking <a href="http://www.borseufficialeitalia.com..."><Louis Vuitton Outlet Online</strong></a> guy wearing a dark suit, crew cut, and thick black horn-rimmed glasses and carrying a briefcase. He was both tempted and terrified. Terror won out. He walked on; she smiled, shrugged, and went back to work. I checked out the theaters and storefronts, and one bright si