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Women’s Rights in the MENA Region: Progress & Obstacles

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Women's Rights in the MENA Region - Progresses & Obstacles

A Background to Women’s Rights in the MENA Region

Gender equality is a fundamental human right and an imperative foundation which lays the groundwork for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. The development of women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has seen much progress and obstacles over the past decade. However, the unequal status of women stands out as a particularly challenging problem.

Following “International Women’s Day” last month, this article provides a snapshot of the development of women’s rights in the MENA region as of April 2023. MENA countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The MENA region has a reputation for struggling with gender equality. Therefore, this article focuses on this region. However, it is important to emphasize that the MENA region is not the only place women experience inequality. Gender inequality is also seen in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America. Undoubtedly, women continue to face discrimination and significant barriers to fully realizing their rights worldwide.

Any Progress in the MENA Region?

Governments are developing stronger laws and policies to support women’s rights.

Significant laws, policies, and programming developments have focused on gender equality within the MENA region. Moreover, women’s representation in government has increased.

Many countries in the region have established “national women’s machinery”. This machinery is used in government offices, departments, commissions, or ministries. All these provide government leadership and support in achieving gender equality.

Furthermore, there have been notable improvements in education and health within gender-related indices. There has been an increase in specialized programming to support women’s rights and empowerment in this region.

Women struggle to uphold their rights in places like Palestine. It is international human rights laws and conventions which are helping women in advocating for and strengthening their fight. Since the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) by the State of Palestine in March 2014, civil society organizations and women human rights defenders have publicly advocated for the implementation of the Convention and the passing of a Family Protection Bill, pending since the early 2000s, which would specifically address gender-based discrimination and violence. In turn, this will help to edge women closer towards gender equality in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Women are increasing their role in civil society and advocating their rights

Women are increasing their engagement in civil society. Women’s and youth feminist civil society has started to dominate the political scene in advocating for and securing gains. In Iran, millions of young women took to the street following Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody for improperly wearing her hijab. These women risked their lives to change the system. Many were arrested and beaten and now face the death penalty for speaking out. This demonstrates women’s power in standing up against authoritarian regimes and fighting oppression.

Women's Rights in the MENA Region: Progres & Obstacles - Masha Amini
Caption: Thousands walk to the cemetery of Masha Amini’s funeral in Iran supporting women’s rights in September 2022.

The Iranian government is brutally repressing women’s voices who courageously stand up for their freedom. The UN has called Iran a “gender apartheid” on women.

Read more: Mahsa Amini: Iranian Women Are Leading an Extraordinary Revolution.

Women’s civil society actively engages internationally with the “Women’s Peace and Security” agenda. Remarkably, women activists have testified before the United Nations Security Council. The UN Women highlighted the gender impact of conflict and occupation on women’s rights.

What Obstacles Hinder the Development of Women’s Rights in the MENA Region?

Women face many inequalities within the MENA society, correlating them as second-class citizens with little to no protection from violence. The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded existing inequalities. Moreover, factors significantly reducing space for constructive civil society engagement with governments include ongoing conflict, the revival of extremist religious groups, and increased political turmoil. These international crises created many setbacks in passing long-term legal change.

Poverty & gender-based violence

The 2022 global poverty update from the World Bank reports that the MENA region is the only place worldwide where the extreme poverty rate increased between 2010 and 2020. Poverty has a detrimental impact on women’s rights.

Gender-based violence is also one of the main challenges facing women in the region today, with devastating effects on their health and well-being and their economic and civic participation.

Women protest for the development of women's rights in the MENA region.
Caption: Egyptian women in Cairo protest against violence against women [EPA].

Read more: Female Genital Mutilation in Somalia Reflects Deep-Rooted Gender Inequality.

A striking example of gender-based violence was in 2022 when the Israeli forces shot dead Al Jazeera’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank. Abu Akleh, a longtime TV correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed on the 11th of May 2022 while covering Israeli army raids in Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.

Read more: Who is Shireen Abu Akleh?

Women have no right to nationality in the MENA region

The MENA region has the highest concentration of gender-discriminatory nationality laws. An estimated 50% of the 25 countries in MENA deny women equal rights to pass nationality to their children.

Algeria is the only country in the region with nationality laws upholding complete gender equality, including women’s right to confer nationality on their children and noncitizen spouse on an equal basis with men. Thus, gender discrimination in nationality laws is one of the primary causes of statelessness in the MENA region, in addition to causing several other human rights violations.

Lebanon, Kuwait, and Qatar deny women the right to confer nationality to their children and spouses in all circumstances. Other States, including Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), deny women the right to confer their nationality to children in most circumstances.

Read more: World Leaders Remain Silent Over Human Rights Violations in the UAE.

Malnutrition in women and girls increases by 25%

Malnutrition in women and girls increased by 25% in crisis-hit countries in the MENA region between 2020-2022. Over a billion women and adolescent girls are malnourished in the world. This has detrimental health, economic and well-being impacts. Most women and girls affected by this statistic live in the MENA region. Both local and global crises in 2023 could exacerbate the development of women and girls living there. Rising poverty and inequities increase the chances that people will turn to cheap, ultra-processed, unhealthy foods.

“Addressing malnutrition in women and girls is essential to reduce the gender health gap”

Amira Ghouaibi, Project Lead, Women’s Health Initiative, Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare, World Economic Forum.

Therefore, the world is making slow progress. Issues like soaring food prices, climate change and the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic risk making the nutrition crisis an even more significant problem in 2023. Nutrition is a widely overlooked issue; coordinated access and policy intervention are urgently needed.

Read more: Children’s Rights in Yemen Are Teetering on the Edge of A Catastrophe.

Survey Findings Provide Unprecedented Insights into Gender Attitudes in MENA Region

Despite incremental progress and the advancements mentioned above, gender attitudes across the region continue to fall behind internationally recognized standards.

The opinions and attitudes of citizens across the MENA region were recorded in the latest Arab Barometer survey from October 2021 to July 2022. This is the largest publically available survey published since the onset of COVID. Its results were shocking across 12 MENA countries, which collectively are home to 80 per cent of the citizen population in the Arab world. The findings give an unprecedented insight into the everyday lives of these citizens.

The survey showed a plurality of citizens either agree or strongly agree with the following statement:

“In general, men are better at political leadership than women.”

More than three-quarters of Algerians (76%) support this view, as do majorities of respondents in:

  • Libya (69%),
  • Iraq (69%),
  • Jordan (66%),
  • Egypt (66%),
  • Palestine (65%), and
  • Kuwait (65%).

Surprisingly, only in Lebanon and Tunisia do most of the population disagree or strongly disagree with the above statement.

Moreover, governments’ patriarchal character has effectively prevented efforts to address negative cultural and social constructs against women meaningfully. This limits the ability to change prevailing gender power relations and social roles qualitatively.

Concluding Thoughts

The development of women’s rights in the MENA region remains unresolved.

It does not reflect the commitments to the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. Incremental progress has been documented, yet the pace is slow. Recent survey results showing gender discriminatory ideologies across the region show we still have much work to do to educate developing countries on gender equality.

Gender-based violence, lack of equal opportunities for economic activities or fundamental rights, and deprivation from political participation and representation have been the challenges facing this region.

Women are rising across the MENA region and fighting for their rights to be heard and implemented. Remarkably, women are igniting a powerful revolution against many corrupt governments, and their strength and courage are both admirable and breathtaking.

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Jewish Nazism is reality not fiction

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Jewish Nazism

I realize that the title of this article might offend and provoke many people, especially those adhering to the Judaic faith. I do know that Jews, like everyone else, are not carbon copies of each other. There are many conscientious Jews who believe in fairness and basic human equality regardless of color, race and faith, and strongly reject racism and chauvinism in any form. Also, I will no longer be using euphemistic language in reference to Jewish Nazism especially in light of the latest Dresden-like bombing of Gaza by the Judeo-Nazi state also known as Israel.

Read Also: No forgiveness for Jewish Nazism

These people I salute for their rectitude, humanity and morality. They are our natural partners for peace and a better tomorrow for our children and their children.

But there are numerous other Jews who don’t believe in human equality and justice for all. Indeed, there are many Jews, e.g. followers of the hateful Chabad sect, who don’t even ascribe full humanity to people who are not members of the Jewish faith.

Needless to say, the venomous ideology adopted by these racist fanatics has much in common with Aryan Nazism.

Read Also: The futility of counting on the U.S. to pressure Israel

What else can be said to describe an ideology that teaches adherents that the life of a non-Jew has no sanctity and that goyem can be murdered without the slightest compunction or feeling of guilt?

The shocking reactions by the Israeli government, rabbis, and community leaders to the latest abduction, murder and subsequent burning of a Palestinian kids in Gaza are very telling.

In a certain sense, these reactions and attitudes can be compared to the reactions and attitudes of many Germans to the pogroms carried out against Jews by the Nazis prior to and during the Second World War.

The gleefully despicable embrace of the brashly hideous crime by the bulk of the Israeli Jewish society underscores the fact that millions of Jews in Israel and abroad do harbor certain Nazi tendencies, especially against the Palestinian people. These tendencies are too real and too tangible to be overstated.

However, we must call the spade a spade, even at the expense of upsetting the huge Zionist propaganda machine which habitually alters the black into white and the blatant big lie into a “truth” glorified by sheepish westerners who have long been brainwashed into believing that Israel is a modern, civilized and democratic state.

In the final analysis, when Jews (or anyone else) think, behave and act like the Nazis thought, behaved and acted, they simply become Nazis. Pure and simple.

Today, there are numerous Jews who openly call for the physical annihilation of Palestinians as retaliation for the abduction and killing of three Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Saber-rattling rabbis speak menacingly of the need to adopt “the Biblical way” to combat the Palestinians.

For those not versed in Jewish phraseology, “Biblical way” is euphemism for genocide.

Today, the Israeli media reported that some army personnel openly appealed to the government to “give us the green light to annihilate them.”!!!

Just read what thousands of Jewish youths have been writing on their Facebook pages! It is outrageous, disgusting and sheer evil.

To put it in a nutshell, Nazism is being regurgitated and exuded all over Israel. This is happening in broad daylight while professional liars like Binyamin Netanyahu are filling the ether with all sorts of shameless lies about Israel being victimized by the Palestinians.

Seventy-six years have passed since Kristalnacht. Today Jewish settlers in the west Bank, in close cooperation and coordination, with the Israeli army could very well carry out a huge pogrom against an innocent and helpless community which really finds itself very much in the same precarious and vulnerable position that European Jewry experienced prior to WWII.

I am not a prophet of doom and gloom, but the signs are unmistakably bleak.

A final point, the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are surviving thanks to the good-will of the international public opinion. Should the international community go into a brief slumber, God forbid, Israel and its own Wehrmacht, SS, Gestapo and Hitler Youth might embark on the unthinkable. Don’t you ever say Jews can’t carry out a holocaust against their victims, the Palestinians?

Words can kill; words do kill.

Unfortunately, the chilling words we are hearing from many Israeli Jews these days leave no room for optimism.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator , we lost him on account of natural reasons on 12th of July last year in the Occupied Palestine

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I’m most definitely Palestinian!

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Palestinian

In-your-face brutality, unending genocide, unending atrocities, mass slaughter directed against one’s people, one’s brethren, causes the most strong and unimaginable reaction, in response to the oppressor’s horrendous and barbaric deeds. The autocratic, despotic, tyrannical Israeli-hand systematically and with pre-planned engineered precision, massacres, annihilates, eliminates the young and the old Palestinian alike – in the most inhumane and most despicable of ways. Slaughters men, women and children in broad daylight. Bares its blood-thirsty intentions, its monstrous objectives in the most unashamed of ways. Mercy to none – not to the living, not to the severely wounded and dying; no mercy even on the dead or their lifeless remains.

The constant fear of being bombed anytime, rained down with missiles and all manner of munitions from within the vast arsenal of the Israeli side; definitely stockpiled high, with enough buffer inventory of munitions, deadly and lethal stockpile, to blow the receiving side multiple times over; so as not to leave a “shred” of evidence of your original physical-self on the surface of the land, which your people, generations and generations of your ancestors, since time immemorial have dwelt on.

Read Also: The age-old Palestinian-fear (of the Israeli thirst)

The inexplicable terror of seeing Israeli drones constantly “floating about” unopposed, in the skies above your unsheltered head. Drones with eyes like that of a greedy dog. Electronic pixels wanting to cast an evil eye, an evil-spell upon your very being. Eyeing upon your existence, wanting to blow-up, tear-up your physical being, seemingly wanting to devour your flesh and body; all by way of a few computer clicks / even the manual computer-clicks now, seemingly, are being replaced by more automated ways of executing these most evil deeds. Software, coded software, written programs to execute on the most Evil-intentions. Evil-intentions of the most evil amongst the human race.

Everybody knows, the Israelis have exterminated with their weaponry, uncountable numbers of Palestinians across a 40, 50km stretch of land, in front of the whole world, over the past so many weeks and months. And retain the capacity, the ability, the power, the means to slaughter, devour many, many more innocent ones, day in, day out.

The Israelis possess American technology, American weapons – the bedrock of their faith, the foundation stone of their belief in their never-ending invincibility. The Palestinians have their faith in Allah; that Allah will redeem his faithful people, from the clutches of these war-mongers, who rain down terror, day and night on the most innocent, the most vulnerable.

Most definitely, the Moslem spirit in me, the Palestinian spirit in me is not defeated; quite to the contrary, it’s rekindled, stronger than ever.

I’m definitely Palestinian, in every sense of the word, and Allah will save us, Allah will have mercy on us, Allah will guide us.

(Note: Azhaar Amayreh is a marketer stuck in war-ravaged Rafah with her child.)The following article is part of a campaign to raise money to help MZEMO contributor Azhaar Amayreh and her family leave Gaza. Please give what you can.

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The futility of counting on the U.S. to pressure Israel

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It is really ludicrous to see how dishonest the U.S “mediators” constantly demand that the Palestinians display more “good will” toward Israel at a time when Israel continues to perpetrate a real Holocaust against the hapless and helpless Palestinaians and steal Palestinian land in broad daylight.

It seems amply clear that the current Palestinian leadership, i.e. the Palestinian Authority (PA)  led by Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, neither learns from its own blunders nor from other people’s blunders. This is really a gigantic disaster befalling the Palestinian people and their enduring just cause.

How else can one relate to the unrelenting illogical insistence of the the whole world on accepting the U.S., Israel’s guardian-ally, as “mediator and honest broker” between us and our murderous tormentors and grave-diggers, Israel?

Read Also: The US and IsraelThe dog versus the wagging tail.

Indeed, one doesn’t have to be an expert on American foreign policy in the Middle East to know that the U.S represents the problem, not the solution, given its long-standing embrace of Israeli fascism and expansion.  After all, it is the US that not only enabled Israel to actively pursue its lebensraum policy at the expense of its neighbors but consistently shield it from any accountability or international condemnation.

Today, the U.S. administration is criticizing Palestinian “unilateralism” in reference to desperate PA efforts to get the UN Security Council to recognize Palestinian statehood and agree on a deadline for ending Israel’s Nazi-like occupation.

Well, we all know that the U.S. is being pornographically hypocritical when it accuses the virtually vanquished Palestinians of acting unilaterally as if its spoilt nefarious daughter, Israel, were ever acting in full conformity with international law.

Well, Mr. Abbas and Mr. Ereikat: Don’t be too gullible, too sheepish. Ask your American interlocutors, e.g. Mr. John Kerry, the following questions:

Since when did Israel ever behave bilaterally rather than unilaterally?

Was the usurpation of Palestine and expulsion of its indigenous people at the hands of Jewish terrorist gangs hailing from Eastern Europe, a bilateral or unilateral act?

Was the annexation by Israel of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights a bilateral or a unilateral act?

Was the building of hundreds of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as the transfer of 600,000 Jewish settlers to live on a land that belongs not to them a bilateral or unilateral act?

Was the wanton demolition of some 30,000 Palestinian homes by Israel a bilateral or a unilateral act?

Was the annexation of the bulk of the West Bank and East Jerusalem a bilateral or a unilateral act?

And what about this ugly structure, called Separation wall, which resulted in the theft of thousands of acres of private Palestinian land? Was it a bilateral or a unilateral act?

I could go on and on and on listing America’s hypocritical and duplicitous stands on Palestinian grievances and Israeli crimes. Indeed, the U.S dishonest stand on the Palestinian plight has only been consistent in its moral depravity. Indeed, hypocrisy in its most brazen form has always been and continues to be the modus operandi of American policy toward the Palestinian issue. I know it is politically incorrect to speak in this tone. However, truth must not be another victim of the dark evil embrace between the U.S. and Israel.

But morality is not and has never been part of American politics or policies, especially foreign policy. This is why the world looks so ugly, so gloomy and so unjust.

The U.S. is insisting that only a “negotiated” settlement to the Palestinian issue would be acceptable to the U.S.

Read Also: The Palestinian Authority: confused, frustrated and corrupt

In other words, Israel must always have the final say as to any possible peace deal with the Palestinians.

But since Israel would never ever end its occupation or dismantle the settlements, let alone allow for the repatriation of the refugees, it means there can be no negotiated settlement unless the Palestinians agree to surrender to Jewish Nazism. But that will never happen as Muslims, including the Palestinian people, would never allow the Ramallah leadership or any other leadership to commit adultery with the honorable Palestinian cause.

Let’s be honest. The purportedly honest American broker or mediator is neither honest nor a broker or mediator. The proverbial American judge is simply telling the insolent rapist (Israel) and the vanquished rape victim (the Palestinians) to sort it out amongst yourselves. Do we have to be the smartest humans on earth to understand the implications of this brutal ugliness?

It is tantamount to a total American embrace of Israeli fascism. It means that the American stance is actually Israel’s stance. It also means that that the U.S. would never accept or condone any settlement that Israel doesn’t accept.

That is why the Palestinians need to have a moment of truth with themselves.
And the message they need to internalize is that they would have to wait ages if they continued to put their trust in the U.S. to pressure Israel to walk in the path of peace.

Let us face it. Israel will never walk in the path of peace unless it is pressured and bullied to do so. However, Israel would never ever walk in the path of peace as long as it continues to receive nuclear submarines from Germany and the most advanced fighter jets from the U.S.

In a nut shell, America can’t and won’t exert any meaningful pressure on Israel to end its N-a-z-i-like occupation. We all know that Israel controls the American government or at least controls those who control the American government. Israel is intoxicated by its arrogance of power and Talmudic insolence. And the U.S., Israel’s guardian-ally, is not in a position to be an honest mediator and to impose a deal on Israel or even convince her to allow for one that would give the Palestinian a semblance of justice.

What should be done?

We must go ahead with our efforts at the U.N. Security Council, irrespective of American threats to veto any resolution favorable to the Palestinian cause. At least casting the veto would embarrass America itself and its treacherous Arab allies (they are not actually allies but cheap slaves and puppets as we all know).

We Palestinians must be confident of our inevitable triumph over Zionism and its evils. Yes, it may take time, but eventually Zionism won’t live forever in a sea where hundreds of millions live.

Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist and political commentator , we lost him on account of natural reasons on 12th of July last year in the Occupied Palestine

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