02 December 2009

MENA Organizations Work to Abolish Violence Against Women

U.S. partnerships aid regionwide effort

By Carrie Loewenthal Massey
Special Correspondent

Washington — Violence against women, a truly global issue, crosses cultural, economic and political lines. At least one of every three women in the world has suffered some form of violence, from beatings to sexual crimes, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

The United States is no exception. It is estimated that the United States pays upwards of $5.8 billion annually (in 2009 dollars) for medical care and loss of productivity caused by spousal violence alone, as indicated in a 2003 report of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Determined to erase these grim statistics at home and abroad, the Obama administration has committed to combating violence against women. President Obama has appointed special advisers to fight for women’s rights, such as Melanne Verveer, the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues. On November 25, Elimination of Violence Against Women Day, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the time has come to take steps to eradicate gender-based violence, to recognize that such violence “is criminal.”

Through partnerships and funding efforts, the United States helps support efforts under way in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to eliminate violence against women. Projects in the region, spearheaded by local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government affiliates, include fighting domestic violence, honor killings and sexual harassment, as well as informing women of their legal rights to help them out of abusive situations.

FIGHTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

KAFA, a Beirut, Lebanon-based NGO, provides a full array of services to victims of domestic violence. Through its established network of providers, the organization connects women to legal services, shelter, vocational training and therapy. KAFA, which means “ENOUGH” (as in “enough violence against women”) works in partnership with British Oxfam, with funding from the U.N. Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, to which the United States is a leading government donor.

One of KAFA’s foremost initiatives is to garner the support of men and boys in combating domestic violence. To successfully spread an anti-violence message in the region, KAFA is training the leaders of women’s organizations in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and Syria to give them the skills to work with male community leaders, youth and perpetrators.

“We work on a human rights basis,” KAFA program coordinator Ghida Anani said, clarifying the group’s mission in an interview with Oxfam. “We are against violence, not men.”

In addition to its work with men and boys, KAFA invites religious leaders to all of its events and works closely with court systems to enact anti-violence laws. The organization helped train 22 Iraqi judges in the complexity and sensitive nature of domestic violence cases.

Just as the Obama administration has prioritized women’s rights, so too has the Jordanian government. Jordan’s present efforts began in 2001 with the creation of the National Council for Family Affairs (NCFA). Led by Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, the NCFA is conducting a survey to determine the effectiveness of systems in place to fight domestic violence. The NCFA plans to use the survey to determine gaps in services available to Jordanian women and propose improvements. This initiative runs concurrently with the NCFA’s efforts to generate a national definition of violence against women, raise awareness of the issue, and enhance and streamline efforts to combat the violence.

Other MENA countries sustain efforts to support domestic violence victims and increase the problem’s visibility. People now speak of the issue more frequently in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, according to the February 2009 publication Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa, Gulf Edition, released by Freedom House. Freedom House is a Washington-based NGO that supports efforts in the MENA region to end violence against women. The report also notes that the government of the United Arab Emirates oversees a shelter for domestic violence victims in Dubai.

Advocacy against domestic violence and support for victims has also steadily increased in Bahrain in recent years, Freedom House reports. Local NGOs provide shelter, free legal advice and rehabilitation services for victims. One successful partnership between the U.S.-based NGO Vital Voices, the Bahraini company Smart Coaching and Research Center, and the U.S. State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) promotes civil society’s participation in the fight against domestic violence and trains people in advocacy and volunteerism.

STOPPING HONOR KILLINGS

One of MEPI’s main objectives is to empower women throughout MENA. Exemplifying these efforts, MEPI’s local grant with the Society Voice Foundation (SVF) in the Palestinian Territories encouraged women to lobby for legislation against honor killings and all forms of violence against women. Honor killings occur within families and involve the murder of a female member believed to have dishonored the family.

MEPI supported SVF in training 150 young Palestinian women, many of whom had media and communications backgrounds, in developing their advocacy skills. Although the SVF project ended December 31, 2008, the impact of their training, radio programs, community town hall meetings and advocacy campaigns continues to be felt in the Palestinian Territories.

PROTECTING WOMEN FROM SEXUAL HARASSMENT

In the United States, laws defining and prohibiting different forms of sexual harassment in the workplace have undergone continual refinement and revision since the 1970s. While women still report thousands of instances of sexual harassment each year, these laws take an important step toward empowering women to fight for their proper treatment at work.

The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) is working similarly to empower Egyptian women to fight sexual harassment, but the center’s work goes beyond employment discrimination. The ECWR wants to eliminate the harassment women experience walking public streets. Through a media and public outreach campaign, advocacy for enforcement of current laws and the development of a new law, and a sensitization curriculum for students, the ECWR hopes to make the streets more comfortable for women. In doing so, the organization hopes to draw women back to public and political life.

EDUCATING WOMEN OF THEIR RIGHTS

For women to effectively advocate for themselves, they need to know the scope of their rights. In some countries, including Morocco, family codes provide alternatives for women experiencing violence, including the right to divorce an abusive husband.

MEPI has partnered with Global Rights, a Washington-based NGO with an office in Rabat, Morocco, to train women in the country’s family code, the Moudawana. The Moudawana underwent a revision in 2004, spearheaded by Moroccan feminists. The feminists campaigned for changes to the law, which incorporated women’s right to divorce, by framing the amendments in terms of Islam. They explained that granting women certain civil rights is not a Western concept, but rather applies Muslim conceptions of social justice.

To further the education effort, MEPI and Global Rights train NGOs to teach women their legal rights. These groups conduct grass-roots legal rights education for illiterate women throughout Morocco. The project also supports a women’s human rights resource center that contains more than 2,000 multilingual, multimedia resources. Global Rights is also engaged in promoting specific legislation to prevent violence against women in Morocco.