Empowerment

Bahrain: Women Victims of Political Agenda and Propaganda

The Bahraini Authorities stepped up the political propaganda built on the exploitation of women for promotional purposes, without a real evolution of women’s legal, civil, political, economical, social or cultural rights. While authorities are promoting the involvement of women in the political scene and presenting the program as a proof of progress and reforms, in reality, the program is limited in practice by employing a limited number of women in high positions selected on the basis of political and sectarian affiliation, and not on sound career qualifications, a process which discriminates against thousands of qualified women due to their gender, sectarian and tribal affiliation.

International: WTO Ministerial Conference was a missed opportunity

The seventh WTO Ministerial Conference turned out to be a missed opportunity in addressing the serious challenges facing women and men in the global economy. It turned out a missed opportunity to promote a new model of multilateral trading system that addresses livelihood, employment, decent working conditions, food security, climate change and gender inequalities.

We have the promises of the world: Women's Rights in Afghanistan

Human Rights Watch recently released report 'We have the promises of the world: Women's Rights in Afghanistan' provides an insight on the current state of affairs of the women's rights struggle in Afghanistan while highlighting common themes of the feminist struggle across the globe.

Arab World: Research Leads to Rights Breakthrough for Women

Women in Arab countries are making human rights history as they break down barriers to being treated as full citizens in their own countries. In the past few years, women in Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco married to foreigners have won the right to convey their citizenship to their children. Algerian women can also now extend citizenship rights to their spouses.

International: The pitfalls of monitoring and evaluating gender equality programmes

A summary of Part I “Capturing change in women’s realities: The challenges of monitoring and evaluating our work” a paper by Srilatha Batliwala* and Alexandra Pittman.** Monitoring and evaluation now form an integral part of women’s rights and gender equality programmes as we attempt to measure how effectively we work. But are the frameworks we use able to perform this ambitious task? In their paper Capturing change in women’s realities: The challenges of monitoring and evaluating our work Srilatha Batliwala and Alexandra Pittman assess the “ifs,” the “whys” and the “hows” of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) in women’s rights, women’s empowerment and gender equality. They observe that “over the past few decades, important strides have been made in developing ways of capturing a whole range of abstract but vital social realities, and particularly in trying to quantify them.

The WLUML interview : Ziba Mir-Hosseini

Ziba Mir-Hosseini is an anthropologist by training who has been working on Islamic Family Law for the past 25 years. In this audio interview, Mir-Hosseini explains how, for her, feminism in a Muslim context is struggling for justice, standing up against discrimination and having the ability to make dignified choices in life. Director of the documentary film, "Divorce Iranian Style" (1998), Mir-Hosseini says that the research she did for the film was part of a wider project on the application of family law in Iran and Morocco, which came out as a book in 1993.

المغرب: من أجل قانون خاص بالعنف الممارس تجاه النساء: قافلتنا التحسيسية و التعبوية

قام Global Rights مؤخرا بإنجاز قافلة تعبوية حول الحقوق الإنسانية للنساء، لمدة 3 أسابيع، طافت حول مختلف مناطق المغرب بهدف التعبئة الوطنية لدعم مبادرت المناصرة التشريعية من أجل " قانون خاص بمناهضة العنف الممارس تجاه النساء"، المبادرة التناصرية المكثفة التي أطلقها فريق Global Rights و شركائه في شتنبر 2007 و التي تدخل عامها الثالت. خلال 21 يوما قطعت القافلة 4000 كلم عبر البلاد، توقفت في 33 مدينة و قرية لتنظيم أنشطة تحسيسية، تعبوية و ترافعية حول العنف الممارس تجاه النساء، شملت 20 مائدة مستديرة بمشاركة أزيد من 700 ممثل و ممثلة للجمعيات المحلية، مختصين قانونيين، فاعلين محليين و ممثلي السلطات المحلية. بالإضافة إلى 17 لقاءا تحسيسيا حول الحقوق الإنسانية مع أزيد من 1100 امرأه على مستوى القاعدة.

Morocco: Mobilization Caravan in Morocco to promote a Law on Violence against Women

Global Rights Maghreb recently conducted a three-week Women’s Human Rights Mobilization Caravan across Morocco to generate national support for our legislative advocacy initiative to promote a Violence against Women Law, now in its third year. Over the 21 days we travelled more than 4000 kilometres around the country, stopping in 33 diverse cities, towns and villages to hold awareness raising and advocacy activities on violence against women, including 20 round tables with over 700 local NGO members, legal professionals and decision-makers, as well as 17 human rights mobilization meetings with over 1100 women at the grassroots level.

Maroc: Caravane de Mobilisation pour promouvoir une Loi contre les violences faites aux femmes

Pendant les 21 jours, nous avons parcouru plus de 4000 kilomètres sur tout le pays, sommes arrêtés dans 33 villes et villages pour organiser des activités de sensibilisation et de plaidoyer sur les violences faites aux femmes, y compris 20 tables rondes avec plus de 700 membres d’associations locales, professionnels juridiques et décideurs, ainsi que 17 rencontres de mobilisation sur les droits humains avec plus de 1100 femmes au niveau de la base.

US: 16 Days Campaign Commences November 25

Commit Act Demand: We CAN End Violence Against Women! On November 25th, the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) will launch the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, a global project it has coordinated for 19 years from its base at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Each year the campaign, which mobilizes tens of thousands of people around the world, raises awareness of the many forms of violence faced by women from all walks of life, of every economic status, and in every community throughout the world.