Equality Without Reservation!

Activists press their governments throughout the Arab world to fully implement the UN Women's Rights Convention

By Lina Abou Habib*

More than 100 representatives -- from 43 women's organizations from 14 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf -- met in Amman, Jordan on the 26th and 27th of June 2009 upon the invitation of the Equality without Reservation regional campaign coalition. This meeting came at a time when conservative political powers had launched a campaign against women’s groups demanding that CEDAW (the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) reservations be lifted in Jordan.

During the two-day gathering, participants shared information about the power and potential of CEDAW and the Optional Protocol** as international instruments which can and should be used by women’s organizations locally to demand Arab states to honor commitments to gender equality and women’s rights.

The progress and challenges of the campaign in select Arab countries were presented thus allowing participants to compare and contrast opportunities and challenges in their own countries. Activities ranged from awareness-raising to alliance-building with other rights groups, to media work, as well as various forms of lobbying and advocacy.

Conveners highlighted the serious obstacles and threats that the Campaign is facing, notably the political instability of the region, increased repression, fragmentation, overwhelmingly conservative regimes and the de-prioritization of women’s issues on the political and social agenda. The most insidious challenge is undoubtedly the fact that most Arab states pay only lip service when it comes to upholding women’s rights and equality to embellish their image vis-à-vis the West. Religion and religious institutions were discussed as both a threat and an opportunity for promoting women’s rights. Whilst there were significant differences amongst participants in their analysis of the role and impact of religion, conveners by and large agreed that women’s indivisible, inalienable, and universal rights cannot be compromised or relativised.

The final communiqué issued by the conference conveners emphasized the necessity to step up campaign activities in all Arab countries, target major state and non-state institutions, strengthen alliance-building within and beyond the region, and invest in further media work and building capacities. Continued collective action, regional and global alliance-building, as well as relentless campaigning, were identified as key strategies for success.

Women’s Learning Partnership’s (WLP) partner organizations from Bahrain, Lebanon, Mauritania and Morocco participated in this event with Lebanon and Morocco being members of the Campaign steering committee. The steering committee met before the end of the conference to evaluate and review results as well as plan the way forward. The steering committee emphasized the importance of exchange and support amongst its members.

WLP for its part will continue to provide advocacy support to the Equality without Reservation campaign through various means and mechanisms. Information about the Campaign as well as related news will be made available on WLP’s mailing list, Facebook page, and Twitter feed on a regular basis. Given the rapid global changes and challenges facing the women’s movement, lifting reservations to CEDAW and ratifying its Optional Protocol in the Arab region remain one of the key mechanisms for making gender equality a reality.

* Lina Abou Habib is the Executive Director of Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action (CRTD-A), a Lebanon-based organization that provides technical support and training to NGOs, governmental partners, researchers, and international agencies on numerous areas of social and community development with particular focus on gender equality and equity.

** The Optional Protocol to CEDAW contains two procedures: (1) A communications procedure allows individual women, or groups of women, to submit claims of violations of rights protected under the Convention to the Committee. (2) The Protocol also creates an inquiry procedure enabling the CEDAW Committee to initiate inquiries into situations of grave or systematic violations of women’s rights.