Women Live Blog

17 weeks 6 days ago - Egypt

Egypt's new parliament may be short on Christians and women, if allegedly leaked results published in a local newspaper prove correct.

The independent Shorouk newspaper published a full list of all 498 elected members of parliament on Friday. Of them, nine are women and nine are Christians.

Women make up half of the Egyptian population, while Christians number perhaps 10 per cent.

 

Tags candidates, Copts, parliament, Women
17 weeks 6 days ago - Libya

Libya's National Transitional Council will scrap a plan to set a 10 per cent quota for women in its new parliament, a Western diplomat told Reuters on Friday.

In December, the NTC proposed an electoral draft law including plans for the quota and asked for comments. Around 14,000 emails came in, 80 per cent of which opposed the quota, including some from women's rights groups, the diplomat said.

A rule barring voting for people with multiple nationalities will also go, but the NTC will relax a ban on its own members running for office. Libyans with ties to Gaddafi will still be banned, as will academics who wrote about Gaddafi's political manifesto, his "Green Book".

Tags parliament, quota, Women
22 weeks 2 days ago - Egypt

Our own Jamal Elshayyal reports from Tahrir Square, where hundreds of mostly female protesters have gathered to condemn what they describe as excessive violence targeting women journalists and protesters by the Egyptian security apparatus in recent days.

Tags Jamal Elshayyal, Tahrir Square, Women, Women's rights
24 weeks 1 day ago - Egypt

sarrahsworldDear journalists,asking"what does it to feel like to be a woman in the revolution" is sexist. both genders suffer under #SCAF rule!!Wed Dec 07 14:02:52

Tags Gender, Twitter, Women
27 weeks 5 days ago - Yemen

 

Women march in Sanaa on saturday to denounce violence which killed about 17 people in the Yemeni city of Taiz on Friday and the proposed immunity for Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh. [Reuters]

File 51846

Tags march, Sanaa, Taiz, Women
31 weeks 3 days ago - Tunisia

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Tunisia has one of the world's most ambitious gender parity laws.

The ruling was introduced in April in an effort to ensure woman would have a voice in the constituent assembly. All political parties are required to present an equal number of male and female candidates on their electoral lists, and to alternate the candidates (man-woman-man or woman-man-woman).

Parity on the lists, however, is unlikely to translate into parity in the constituent assembly. Under the rules for the election, in many cases only the candidate heading the list will win a seat.

Out of 1570 electoral lists, only 292 are led by women. The only political group to choose gender parity when it comes to those at the top of its list is the Democratic Modernist Coalition (PDM).

Along with appointing a new president and government, the body that will be charged with the crucial task of rewriting the constitution (see this article for background on some of the gender issues at stake).

Tags Gender parity, Tunisia election, Women
34 weeks 4 hours ago - Bahrain

Hundreds of Bahraini women have taken to the streets on Thursday to protest against the detention of protesters who took part in pro-democracy protests earlier in the year.

The protest came on the same day as Bahrain sentanced 20 doctors and nurses for between five and 15 years on charges of incitement, the state news agency said, in what critics claimed was reprisal for treating pro-democracy activists in February.

Ahlam al-Khezaei, the head of women's affairs for the main Shiite Wefaq party, described the sentences as cruel and told the all female crowd: "We ask for all women prisoners to be freed and for all charges against them to be dropped."

Tags protest, wefaq party, Women
51 weeks 2 days ago - Yemen

This extract from freedomnjusticeseeker's blog explains the change of perception  women's role in the struggle for freedom in Yemen.

Our culture has put side lines on things that women and men should and shouldn’t do. Therefore, it did cause a stir on women protesting. Some people oppose it and are not in favor of them being out till late at night and even sleeping out in tents. Nonetheless, being out and mixing with men. Others on the other hand are in favor of being part of a historic moment. Families of some women that were once not allowed to do such a action are now allowed to because they want to prove a point to the world and to Ali Abdullah Saleh.

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A girl prays with other women during a rally to demand the ouster of Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sana'a [image|reuters

Tags blog, protest, Taiz, Women
51 weeks 4 days ago - Libya

Reports have come out that 259 women have reported rapes by forces loyal to Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi's.

The reports have all been documented by Dr. Seham Sergewa, who was initially examining Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among children, but she shifted her focus once women began approaching her in large numbers.

To her surprise, 259 women came forward with accounts of rape. They all had similar stories.

"I was really surprised when I started visiting these areas, first by the number of people suffering from PTSD, including the large number of children among them, and then by the number of women who had been raped from both the east and west of the country,'' Sergewa said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Sergewa believes the number of rape victims is much higher than reported, but that victims are afraid to get help.

And the reports are absolutely horrifying.

"First they tied my husband up," one woman wrote in her statement for Sergewa. "Then they raped me in front of my husband and my husband's brother. Then they killed my husband.''

Another woman in Misurata said she was raped in front of her four children after Gaddafi fighters burned down her home.

"They are using rape not just to hurt women but to terrorize entire families and communities," Sergewa said.

"The women I spoke to say they believed they were raped because their husbands and brothers were fighting Gaddafi."  -  [AP]

Tags Gaddafi, Misurata, Muammar Gaddafi, rape, war crimes, Women
1 year 6 days ago - Obama on Middle East

Obama on the role of women in the region:

The region will not reach its full potential when more than half of its people are prevented from reaching their potential

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