May 22, 2018
This Week in Women’s Rights 2018–05–21
“Saudi Arabia has detained seven women’s rights campaigners, accusing them of working with “foreign entities”, weeks before the kingdom lifts a ban on female drivers.
Activists said all of those arrested by state security had worked in some capacity on women’s rights issues, with five of them among the most prominent and outspoken campaigners in the country.
Pro-government media outlets splashed their photos online and in newspapers, accusing them of being traitors.”
“In March last year, among the throngs of young people and families that gather on the wide seafront promenade of Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut, thirty-one white dresses hung suspended in the air. Activists had placed them there as a stark visual reminder of each day of the month that a woman could be compelled to marry her rapist under Article 522 of the Lebanese penal code. It was just one of the tactics used by Abaad MENA, a women’s rights group in Lebanon, in their campaign against the law, which absolved a rapist of his crime if he married his victim. Billboard ads, flash mobs, street performances, and a powerful social media campaign using the slogan “A White Dress Doesn’t Cover Rape” and hashtag #Undress522 drew public attention to the law and helped to bring about its end: it was repealed by the Lebanese government last August.
Last year’s controversy in Lebanon is just one example of the intense conflict over women’s bodies and sexuality that’s unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the wake of the Arab Spring. In the protest movements that exploded across the region, women marched alongside men, demanding greater personal freedoms and claiming their rights as citizens. Chief among these was a demand for greater sexual rights and an end to the discriminatory laws that curtailed them. The democratic reforms that have taken hold in some parts of the region, along with the rise of social media, have opened up greater space for women to express their views and build movements for change that challenge laws regulating sexuality and the patriarchal systems of power that they buttress. But the gains like those made in Lebanon last year are a victory in the long-running battle — not a symbol of sweeping change.”
Source: https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/the-long-struggle-for-womens-rights/.
“Last month, Liberian women activists marched to the presidential palace to protest the country’s 2017 Land Rights Act. Concerned for communities dependent on ancestry land for food and income, advocates called for President George Weah to ensure that legislation protects the rights of women and rural Liberians from privatization. From inheritance practices to legal barriers to women owning land at all, Liberian women are not alone in their fight. Governments globally must reform land rights practices that harm women and hinder economic growth.
When the law says no to women and property ownership
When it comes to property ownership, women are not equal in the eyes of the law. According to the World Bank, close to 40 percent of the world’s economies have at least one legal constraint on women’s rights to property, limiting their ability to own, manage, and inherit land. Thirty-nine countries allow sons to inherit a larger proportion of assets than daughters and thirty-six economies do not have the same inheritance rights for widows as they do for widowers.
These legal barriers contribute to a global gender gap in land ownership. An analysis of eight African countries found that women comprise less than one-quarter of landholders. In Latin America, the proportion of female landholders is about 20 percent, and in the Middle East and North Africa region, it is as low as 5 percent. And even when women do control land, it is often smaller in size and of lower quality than that held by men. In countries like Bangladesh, Ecuador, and Pakistan, the average size of land holdings by male-headed households is twice that of households headed by women.”
Source: https://www.cfr.org/blog/place-her-own-womens-right-land.
“At least 10 prominent Saudi activists, mostly women’s rights campaigners,have now been reported to have been arrested in what appears to be an escalating clampdown ahead of the much-vaunted lifting of the prohibition on women driving in the kingdom on 24 June.
The arrests, with more feared by human rights campaigners, come amid a high-profile campaign in Saudi media outlets and on social media denouncing the women as “traitors”.
According to human rights organisations working outside the kingdom, most of the women were warned in September against commenting on the lifting of the ban on female drivers, a reform initiative credited to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as on the anti-guardianship campaign.
Saudi Arabia’s guardianship system requires women to obtain permission from their fathers, brothers, husbands or even sons for a host of life decisions.”
(Updated September 28, 2016)
Scott Douglas Jacobsen founded In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal and In-Sight Publishing. He authored/co-authored some e-books, free or low-cost. If you want to contact Scott: Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.com, Scott.Jacobsen@TrustedClothes.Com, Scott@ConatusNews.Com, scott.jacobsen@probc.ca, Scott@Karmik.Ca.
He is a Moral Courage Webmaster and Outreach Specialist (Fall, 2016) at the UCI Interdisciplinary Center for the Scientific Study of Ethics and Morality (Ethics Center), Interview Columnist for Conatus News, Writer and Executive Administrator for Trusted Clothes, Interview Columnist for Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), Councillor for the Athabasca University Student Union, Member of the Learning Analytics Research Group, writer for The Voice Magazine, Your Political Party of BC, ProBC, Marijuana Party of Canada, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, Harvest House Ministries, and Little Footprints Big Steps International Development Organization, Editor and Proofreader for Alfred Yi Zhang Photography, Community Journalist/Blogger for Gordon Neighbourhood House, Member-at-Large, Member of the Outreach Committee, the Finance & Fundraising Committee, and the Special Projects & Political Advocacy Committee, and Writer for Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Member of the Lifespan Cognition Psychology Lab and IMAGe Psychology Lab, Collaborator with Dr. Farhad Dastur in creation of the CriticalThinkingWiki, Board Member, and Foundation Volunteer Committee Member for the Fraser Valley Health Care Foundation, and Independent Landscaper.
He was a Francisco Ayala Scholar at the UCI Ethics Center, Member of the Psychometric Society Graduate Student Committee, Special Advisor and Writer for ECOSOC at NWMUN, Writer for TransplantFirstAcademy and ProActive Path, Member of AT-CURA Psychology Lab, Contributor for a student policy review, worked with Manahel Thabet on numerous initiatives, Student Member of the Ad–Hoc Executive Compensation Review Committee for the Athabasca University Student Union, Volunteer and Writer for British Columbia Psychological Association, Community Member of the KPU Choir (even performed with them alongside the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra), Delegate at Harvard World MUN, NWMUN, UBC MUN, and Long Beach Intercollegiate MUN, and Writer and Member of the Communications Committee for The PIPE UP Network.
He published in American Enterprise Institute, Annaborgia, Conatus News, Earth Skin & Eden, Fresh Start Recovery Centre, Gordon Neighbourhood House, Huffington Post, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, Jolly Dragons, Kwantlen Polytechnic University Psychology Department, La Petite Mort, Learning Analytics Research Group, Lifespan Cognition Psychology Lab, Lost in Samara, Marijuana Party of Canada, MomMandy, Noesis: The Journal of the Mega Society, Piece of Mind, Production Mode, Synapse, TeenFinancial, The Peak, The Ubyssey, The Voice Magazine, Transformative Dialogues, Treasure Box Kids, Trusted Clothes.
