In This Issue

CONFERENCES & OPPORTUNITIES
Call for Papers - Women, Leadership & Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority
Second Arab Women's Organization Conference Issues Final Statement
Vacancy: Programme Coordinator, "Women Reclaiming and Re-defining Cultures"

NEWS & ARTICLES
GENDER & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Arab MPs Attend Workshop on Discrimination, Abuse of Women
Child Custody Battles Bring Islamic Law into Question in Egypt
Child Marriage and Divorce in Yemen
Forum Suggests Measures to Protect Divorced Women
Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia
Jordan Gets Mideast's First Female Demining Team
Omani Women Get Equal Rights to Own Land
Saudi Arabia’s All-Girl Rock Band
UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in UAE
Urgent Measures Required to Combat Discrimination Against Women in Bahrain

GENDER & ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
Did Housing Policy Reforms Curb the Delay in Marriage Among Young Men in Egypt?
Doha 2008: Women’s Rights & Gender Equality in Financing for Development
Empowering Women through Skills Training: Beyond Poverty to Empowerment
Gender Equality at the Center of Financing for Development

GENDER & CITIZENSHIP
First Female Marriage Official in United Arab Emirates
The Central Role of the Family Law in the Moroccan Feminist Movement
Saudi Shoura Council Rejects Proposal to Ease Saudi Marriages to Foreigners

GENDER & RELIGION
Child Custody Battles Bring Islamic Law into Question in Egypt

GENDER & VIOLENCE
Domestic Violence – Male Guardianship
Hittmen Charge $100 a Victim as Basra Honour Killings Rise
NGO Activities to Focus on Violence Against Women in Jordan
Pregnant Woman Sentenced to Death by Court in Iran
Violence against Migrant & Domestic Workers

BOOKS & REPORTS
GENDER & EDUCATION
Women Gain in Education but not Power, Study Finds

GENDER RIGHTS & VIOLENCE
Rights and Reality – on the Legal Reality Faced by Women in Arab Countries
UN Study of Violence Against Women Finds 50% of Disabled Women Experience Abuse

CONFERENCES & OPPORTUNITIES
Call for Papers - Women, Leadership & Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority
The ability of women to exercise various types of Islamic religious authority has increased significantly since the early twentieth century, especially during the last two or three decades. Read more

Second Arab Women's Organization Conference Issues Final Statement
The Second AWO Conference was convened in Abu Dhabi, UAE, from November 11 to 13. Among the final recommendations are calls for furthering the empowerment of woman in all walks of social life, notably in the political scene and ensuring that women take advantage of ICTs. For more information

Vacancy: Programme Coordinator, "Women Reclaiming and Re-defining Cultures"
Job Advertisement: Programme Coordinator: "Women reclaiming and re-defining cultures: Asserting rights over body, self, and public space" (WLUML-IWE). Read more

NEWS & ARTICLES
GENDER & WOMEN’S RIGHTS
Arab MPs Attend Workshop on Discrimination, Abuse of Women
Arab lawmakers attended the opening day of the second regional workshop on the "Roles of Parliamentarians in the Implementation of CEDAW," referring to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Read more

Child Custody Battles Bring Islamic Law into Question in Egypt
Egyptian human rights workers are looking to international bodies for support against Muslim judges who use sharia (Islamic law) to undermine custody rights of C hristian mothers. Read more

Child Marriage and Divorce in Yemen
A narrow path leads up from the mountain town of Jibla, through century-old houses, and turns into a mud track before reaching the door of Arwa's home. Arwa is making history by requesting a divorce aged just nine. Read more

Forum Suggests Measures to Protect Divorced Women
DAMMAM: More than 100 women, officials and legal experts discussed women’s and children’s rights in divorce in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday at a Dammam forum and issued more than 70 legal, social and cultural recommendations. Read more

Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia
Denying Women the Right to Education, to Employment, the Right to Health, the Right to Equality before the Law, the Right to Freedom of Movement, the Right to Equality in Marriage. Read more

Jordan Gets Mideast's First Female Demining Team
Jordanian woman deminer is pictured as she searches for landmines in the area of Jaber near the Jordanian-Syrian border, on November 26. Two dozen Jordanian women have completed a six-week training course in manual landmine clearance, winning praise for their thoroughness in one of the world's most dangerous jobs. (AFP Awad Awad). Read more

Omani Women Get Equal Rights to Own Land
9/12/2008: In a significant move towards ensuring gender equality for women, Oman has amended its land law to give women equal rights as men to own residential plots. (Rediff). Read more

Saudi Arabia’s All-Girl Rock Band
Who says Saudi girls can’t rock? Four of them recently struck hammer to the anvil to forge The Accolade, an all-girl rock band. The band’s name comes from an Edmund Leighton painting of a princess knitting herself a warrior. Read more

UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in UAE
While several countries also applauded the UAE’s work so far on the situation of women, Canada recommended that the country accord men and women equal status under the constitution. This recommendation was not accepted, but the delegation did say it would further consider amending laws on citizenship so that women married to non-nationals could pass on their nationality to their children in the same manner as male nationals married to non-nationals. Read more

Urgent Measures Required to Combat Discrimination Against Women in Bahrain
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, a UN monitoring body composed of independent experts, has called on the government of Bahrain to adopt urgent measures to end serious discrimination and violence against women." Read more

GENDER, DEVELOPMENT & ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
Did Housing Policy Reforms Curb the Delay in Marriage Among Young Men in Egypt?
A series of reforms in Egypt has reduced barriers to young people entering the rental housing market by liberalizing restrictive rent controls, allowing for definite duration contracts, and reducing the need for young home seekers to provide large capital outlays. Read more

Doha 2008: Women’s Rights & Gender Equality in Financing for Development
We, women from women’s rights organisations and networks gathered in Doha before the official Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) to review the Monterrey Consensus, have been working to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the centre of the FfD process. Read more

Empowering Women through Skills Training: Beyond Poverty to Empowerment
In many countries, women face more barriers than men to acquire the necessary skills to use new technologies and to start innovative economic activities. For the 60 per cent of women employed in agriculture in South Asia, access to quality education, skills training and entrepreneurship development tools not only represents a way out of poverty, but also provides them with opportunities of empowerment in the world of technology, as this ILO Online report from central India shows. Read more

Gender Equality at the Center of Financing for Development
WIDE Position Paper on Doha
The European Union plays a major role in leading the promotion of gender equality, women’s human rights and the empowerment of women in development policies of the international donor community. Read more

GENDER & CITIZENSHIP
First Female Marriage Official in United Arab Emirates
A Muslim woman on Thursday became the first ever female allowed to conduct marriages in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates and throughout the conservative Gulf, the official WAM news agency reported.
She now becomes the first woman to be allowed to write up marriage contracts throughout the conservative Gulf, but she is not the first woman "maazoun" in an Arab state -- Egypt has already broken ground in that area. Read more

The Central Role of the Family Law in the Moroccan Feminist Movement
ABSTRACT Ever since its inception in the mid-forties of the last century, the Moroccan feminist movement has evolved around the family law Code. The post-independence family law denied women basic rights and thus fueled the disappointment and anger of the female intellectual elite (journalists, writers, politicians and activists. Read more

Saudi Shoura Council Rejects Proposal to Ease Saudi Marriages to Foreigners
RIYADH: The Shoura Council yesterday rejected a recommendation to simplify regulations governing Saudis marrying non-Saudis. However, a council session, chaired by its new Vice President Bandar Al-Hajjar, approved other recommendations submitted by Talal Al-Bakri, chairman of the council’s Committee for Social, Family and Youth Affairs. Read more

GENDER & VIOLENCE
Domestic Violence – Male Guardianship
Shattered, burned and bruised, Azza went to the police four times before the authorities allowed her to leave her abusive husband and move into a shelter. In their 12 years together, her Saudi husband had beaten her with metal rods, chained her up and poured boiling water on her. Read more

Hittmen Charge $100 a Victim as Basra Honour Killings Rise
Fathers and husbands who openly hire assassins on the streets of the city are going unpunished. Authorities in the southern Iraqi city of Basra have admitted they are powerless to prevent 'honour killings' in the city following a 70 per cent increase in religious murders during the past year. Read more

NGO Activities to Focus on Violence Against Women in Jordan
Local NGOs in Jordan have scheduled several activities over the next two months focusing on violence against women and launching new services offering counseling for the abused. One of the activities tentatively planned for November 25 is entitled "Towards Strategies that Combat Violence Against Women." Sisterhood Is Global Institute/Jordan will also hold a one-day event in mid-November to address laws that deal with domestic violence and means to implement the laws. Read more

Pregnant Woman Sentenced to Death by Court in Iran
to death by the revolutionary court in the town of Roudan, south of Iran. Iran Human Rights, December 1: A pregnant woman and her husband were sentenced to death convicted of drug trafficking, reported the state run news agency ISCA news. Read more

Violence against Migrant & Domestic Workers
Many migrant and domestic workers still face abuse and exploitation in Middle Eastern and Asian countries because governments have failed to adopt measures needed to protect them, Human Rights Watch said today ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Read more

BOOKS & REPORTS
GENDER & EDUCATION
Women Gain in Education but not Power, Study Finds
Women still lag far behind men in top political and decision-making roles, though their access to education and health care is nearly equal, the World Economic Forum said Wednesday. In its 2008 Global Gender Gap report, the Forum, a Swiss research organization, ranked Norway, Finland and Sweden as the countries that have the most equality of the sexes, and Saudi Arabia, Chad and Yemen as having the least. Read more

GENDER RIGHTS & VIOLENCE
Rights and Reality – on the Legal Reality Faced by Women in Arab Countries
The difference between legal rights and reality for Arab women
The legal reality for women in the Arab world is such that legal rights enshrined in international conventions and in national constitutions and laws are often of little relevance to the lives of many women, especially the poor. Read more

UN Study of Violence Against Women Finds 50% of Disabled Women Experience Abuse
Violence against women is "severe and pervasive" worldwide with one in three women subjected to intimate partner abuse during her lifetime, according to a UN report. In Europe, North America and Australia, more than half of women with disabilities have experienced physical abuse, compared with one third of non-disabled women, the study said.