Empowerment

We do need to look at justice with a gender perspective. It is always women who suffer, both from injustice and society’s blindness towards it. IT SEEMS to be the unchanging lot of women in Malaysia. First we are elevated, and then we are brought down to earth with a thud. When the first women syariah judges were appointed this month, Muslim women were elated. At last, not only are women recognised for their ability to sit on the syariah bench but also perhaps now we can expect better justice for women in the syariah courts.

The Protection Project at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, in cooperation with the Alexandria University Faculty of Law in Alexandria, Egypt, will be hosting a conference on “Women’s Rights in Egypt and Arab States,” which will take place December 1 – 2, 2010 at the Helnan Palestine Hotel in Alexandria, Egypt. The conference will bring together professors of law, religion and social sciences and representatives from NGOs and other elements of civil society to discuss a broad array of topics related to the rights of women in the Arab world, including Islamic law, personal status and family laws, and labor and political rights, among others.

Here in Afghanistan, Samia's story is typical – its happy ending is not. Samia is a rape victim, but now it's the morning of her wedding. By late afternoon, she will be married in a private ceremony in Karte Se, Kabul. One of the 150 guests at this extraordinary marriage ceremony will be the activist and suspended MP Malalai Joya: Samia's handsome husband-to-be, Faramarz, has been one of Ms Joya's bodyguards for more than four years.

The first milestone has been achieved with the GBV Bill. On 30th June 2010, the GBV Bill entitled ‘Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Bill 2010’ went through its first reading at the House of Representatives. This is, therefore, a call from WLUML Nigerian networkers and allies to all stakeholders to lend their voices to the campaign by engaging in lobbying and advocacy activities geared towards sustaining the pressure on parliament to see through the passage of the bill in the present legislative dispensation.