In Pursuit of Justice is a new UN report on the position and rights of women, including in the Arab region. Dina Ezzat spoke to an officer of the agency that produced it UN Women is a "UN organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women", according to Moez Doreid, officer in charge of management and administration. Through regional and country offices, including in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco and the occupied Palestinian territories, UN Women is working to assist concerned NGOs in better promoting the rights of women and girls. UN Women also works with governments and civil societies to design and implement legislation to promote and grant women's rights, in terms of personal status rights, reproductive rights and political rights. With the government and civil society of Morocco, according to Doreid, UN Women has helped in upgrading the Family Law. And during the Egyptian revolution, UN Women was working with concerned NGOs to document "the leading role of Egyptian women during the revolution". "We also have a remarkable success story in Kyrgyzstan where we managed to work with the judiciary of the country to upgrade registration of women ownership of properties and land from five to 35 per cent," Doreid said. According to Doreid, UN Women is currently working with civil society representatives in Egypt and Tunisia to secure the fair and active participation and representation of women in the process of building new democracies. "It is a historic moment that national forces should grab to establish women's rights, and we are here to provide expertise and help pass on best practices," Doreid said. "In Tunis, women have successfully secured a 50 per cent representation on the committee in charge of drafting a new constitution, while in Egypt we hear considerable progressive calls on the participation of women," Doreid noted. Speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly from the head office of the one-year-old organisation, Doreid said that the organisation's first report, "In Pursuit of Justice," is a call for the governments of the world, the Arab region included, to move faster and to show more dedication to reduce disparities between men and women. "The report throws light on the progress secured in promoting and delivering women's rights," Doreid said, while noting the sad fact that all over the world, including in the Middle East, "the rule of law often rules out women". According to the report, "for most of the world's women, the laws that exist on paper do not translate to equality and justice". It adds that women are "all too often denied control over their bodies and denied a voice in decision making". According to Doreid, "Despite the fact that there around 125 countries that penalise domestic violence, women in these very countries are still subject to domestic violence," said Doreid. By the count of UN Women, there are some 603 million women who are deprived of legal protection against domestic violence. The need to create laws to penalise domestic violence is particularly strong in Arab countries, according to Doreid, who notes: "Unfortunately the Arab region is the region with the fewest laws to penalise domestic violence. Most Arab countries live in denial of this problem, or they do not even acknowledge it as a problem." The concept of "marital rape" is not a concern "at all" in the Arab world, according to Doreid, and this is a strong component in domestic violence. South Asia �ê" a region known globally to be weak on laws against domestic violence �ê" is "way ahead" of the Arab region on this front, Doreid said. Also lacking in the Arab world are laws against sexual harassment. "There again the Arab region falls way behind." "Under-reporting of crimes against women is a serious problem in all regions," the report notes. It adds that, "Across 57 countries, crime surveys show that on average 10 per cent of women say they have experienced sexual assault, but of these, only 11 per cent reported it." Is progress possible in what, sometimes, can seem a conservative cultural milieu? "It is possible in Arab communities if they decline to succumb to rigid interpretations of Sharia and embrace enlightened readings of Islamic jurisprudence, and there are many of those," Doreid suggested. "Sharia and women rights are not mutually exclusive and should not be perceived or portrayed as such," he said. According to the report's authors, "gender sensitive law reform is the foundation for women's access to justice". The report underlines that "without a solid legal foundation, attempts to make courts more accessible to women, the police less hostile to their complaints, and other necessary reforms to the administration of justice, are likely to founder." The report is issued today.
