Arab Feminist Civil Society Perspective Regarding States’ Policies on Economic Justice and Rights

Arab Feminist Civil Society Perspective Regarding States’ Policies on Economic Justice and Rights

December 2020

• Theme: Access to Justice, Beijing+25, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Global South Women's Forum, LGBTIQ, Migrant Workers, Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Violence Against Women, Women with Disabilities.
• Type: Video.
• Region/Country: Middle East and North Africa.
• Language: English.

This session at Global South Women’s Forum 2020 presents two policy papers by the Arab Feminist CSOs Network on the elimination of gender-based violence and economic justice and rights. The papers were developed within the process of preparing for Beijing +25, the Generation Equality Forum 2021 to amplify the voices of civil society and feminist organisations and push forward the gender equality agenda.

The session addresses the shortcomings of government policies in securing economic justice and rights of Arab women, focusing on the informal sector, unpaid care work, women and entrepreneurship, and women in the technology sector. It also addresses groups of women who face multiple forms of discrimination, such as rural women, refugee women and migrant domestic workers, and considers different challenges faced by women which impede them from being economically active and from securing decent work, including:

(1) macro-economic obstacles and limited access to resources
(2) discriminatory laws and insufficient legal protection
(3) adverse social norms and sexual harassment at the workplace

Speakers discuss what needs to be achieved from Arab governments in the coming five years in order to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women, including young women and persons with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups with equal pay for work of equal value. The session also presents the different forms of violence that Arab women suffer from and how these discourage women from being economically active. It addresses the failure of legal frameworks and the dearth of services available for survivors/victims of violence in the majority of Arab countries that result in women enduring different forms of violence.

Speakers: Fatema Khafagy, Zeina Abdel Khalik, Samia Fessi (Kadiraat Organisation), Fatima Outaleb (Board of Directors of UAF Morocco) and Islah Jad (Beirzeit University)

Duration: 1:19:30
Subtitles: None