Reports From : Africa And Middle East - women's rights

WIN News, Autumn, 2000

- Urge the State, and exact its commitment to accept and support legislation to enact the full series of amendments to the Family Code. . . to eliminate discrimination and ensure equality.

- Urge the State, and exact its commitment to take immediate steps to ensure that all women have equal preparation for, access to and enjoyment of employment, education, and healthcare rights in accordance with the Convention. . .

- Urge the State, and exact its commitment, to take measures, directed at both women and men, through support of media and community education and arts, to overcome the gender-discriminatory stereotypes and fears fostered by the fundamentalist terror as a cultural matter.

- Urge the State, and exact its commitment to provide resources to and protect and ensure the flourishing of an autonomous NGO community, independent of the State. . .

ROLE OF CEDAW

We call upon this Committee, within the framework of your mandate, to recognize clearly that the program and violence of the fundamentalists present one of the most significant obstacles to the realization of women's equality and enjoyment of fundamental rights. Indeed their campaign of terror, constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity, are direct violations of international law. ... We thus urge the Committee to elicit the State's commitment to eliminate all forms of discrimination as well as to prevent the reinstitutionalization of discrimination -- for example in the threat to strip women again of the right to vote.

The rise of fundamentalism in Algeria and the State's failure to respond adequately, as a political matter, has resulted in a myriad of violations of the Women's Convention. Women have been denied, among others, the right to equal education, art. 10, the right to vote and participate in public life, art.7, the right to be free from social and cultural stereotypes, art. 5,10; -- the right to free choice of profession, art. 11; -- the right to health care, art. 12; -- the right to participate in recreational activities, sports and all aspects of cultural life, art. 13; -- the right to equality before the law, art. 15; -- the right to equality in marriage, art. 15; the right to security and freedom from violence, Rec. 19." A List of specific recommendations to the CEDAW Committee follows ..

AL-RAIDA

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN'S STUDIES IN THE ARAB WORLD, LEBANESE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, P.O. Box 13-5053/59, Beirut, LEBANON

CONTENTS:

"Editorial // Opinion // Research // Quote, Unquote // Newsbriefs // IWSAW News // Introduction to the File // A Study: Perceptions of Rape // Crimes of Honor: Crimes of Horror // Crimes of Honor: Jordan // Testimonies on Honor Crimes // Kuwaiti Women in the Line of Fire // A Turbulent Morocco // A Council Resisting Violence Against Women // Violence Against Women: Yemen as a Case Study // Interview: Diana Moukalled // Beijing 5 // Book Reviews."