You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Africa North
Rights activists draft strategy to stop violence against Arab women
2009-12-12
[Maghrebia] Women's rights activists this week drafted a strategy to prevent violence against women in the Arab world that promotes legislative and awareness-raising campaigns, training, and wider dissemination of data and research.
Why do people waste their time on such things when they could do something that actually made a difference, such as set up micro-lending corporations that empower women by helping them become financially independent, run self-defence workshops so they can learn to defend themselves against attackers (Anonymoose has talked a bit about this kind of thing), sponsor girls' schools, sponsor technical schools so women can develop salable skills and set up their own businesses... Changing the laws will only matter when the women are capable of demanding that the changes be enforced. Cultural changes will only occur when the women have been pushing back successfully for the better part of a generation, regardless of the enlightenment among the elites.
The strategy was drawn up by participants in a Tunis workshop aimed at sharing experiences in the field of fighting violence against Arab women. The three-day event kicked off on December 6th and was organised by the Arab Women Organization (AWO).

"The strategy ... stress[es] the need to protect women from violence and to prevent it through laws, legislation, awareness, training, dissemination of the women's rights culture, the culture of non-violence, and provision of national data, research and statistics on the phenomenon," AWO member and secretary-general of Jordan's National Council for Family Affairs, Haifa Abu Ghazala, said on Tuesday at the event.

Participants examined a range of themes and ways to prevent violence against Arab women. They also shared experiences and experiments in the field of strategies, policies, programmes and methods of intervention on the national level.

Experts at the event said that Arab women suffer from four forms of violence: domestic violence, community violence, institutional violence and violence in armed conflicts.

According to AWO Secretary-General Waduda Badran, the forms of violence against women in Arab countries "differ according to environments, regions, social classes, and cultural and age categories. As a result, the confrontation mechanisms also vary."

Badran added that the Arab world's current situation "requires ... comprehensive strategies that include short, medium and long-term measures based on an in-depth and comprehensive vision of the nature of societies and nature of women's standing therein".

For her part, the head of Morocco's Department of Women, Family and Children's Affairs, Saida Idrissi, said that Tunisia's presidency of the AWO would "give renewed momentum to joint Arab action through supporting and activating the commitments of Arab countries, foremost among which is the drafting of an Arab strategy for combating violence against women".

"The main aim of this workshop is to share experiences and experiments, and to draft a unified Arab strategy with guidance from several successful experiences, such as those of Tunisia and Morocco, especially in the field of activating women's participation in public and political life," added Idrissi.

At the close of the workshop, participants issued a statement urging AWO "member states to issue periodic national reports on the reality of violence against women, and to draft an Arab pilot law in the field of protecting women from violence".
Posted by:Fred

#5  "strategy to stop violence against Arab women"

They're gonna kill all the Arab men?

That doesn't seem very sporting nice.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-12-12 10:21  

#4  I have a radical idea of how to accomplish this, but thus far noone has volunteered to actually attach the bell to the cat.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2009-12-12 09:58  

#3  Why do people waste their time on such things
Because that would entail actually doing something. It's much easier to schedule awareness campaigns, training (?)and writing memos.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2009-12-12 03:51  

#2  Fatwa in 5..4..3
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2009-12-12 09:43  

#1  Why do people waste their time on such things when they could do something that actually made a difference, such as ...

... converting as much of the Muslim world as possible to another religion? Good point.
Posted by: AzCat   2009-12-12 12:26  

00:00