NY Event: Sheikha Haya on Arab Women - 5/7

H.E. Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa

President of the 61^st Session of the UN General Assembly

who will give opening remarks on:

Towards the Rise of Women

in the Arab World

presented by

Amat Al Alim Alsoswa

Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP

Discussant

Christa Salamandra

Anthropology, Lehman College, CUNY

The Arab Human Development Report 2005: toward the rise of women in the Arab world, released in December 2006, argues that women in the Arab world still lack equal opportunity and consequently are not able to realize their full potential. This situation constitutes a problem not just for women, but for progress and prosperity in Arab societies as a whole. The region should now assure that all Arab women be afforded full opportunities across the social spectrum, particularly to access basic health services, to generate and acquire knowledge on an equal footing with men, and to engage in activities outside the home.

Monday, May 7, 2007, 6:00 –8:00 p.m.

Room 9205-9207

Persons wishing to attend please email: nnolutshungu@gc.cuny.edu

Sponsored by the Ralph Bunche Institute and the Middle Eastern and Middle Eastern American Center at the CUNY Graduate Center

Event: Forum on The Status of Arab Women - 3/15

MEDIA ADVISORY Contact: Rima Abdelkader

For immediate release rima.abdelkader@gmail.com

Marking Women’s History Month,
NAAP-NY to host

Forum on Status of Arab Women at Home and Abroad
at NY Society for Ethical Culture

Forum to be hosted by Al-Jazeera Arabic’s DC Bureau Chief

What: Forum and Q & A on the Status of Arab Women at Home and Abroad

Date: Thursday, March 15, 2007

Time: 7:30pm-9:30pm

Where: New York Society for Ethical Culture - Main Auditorium

2 West 64th Street at Central Park West - New York, NY

NEW YORK CITY – Thursday, March 8, 2007 – On Thursday, March 15, 2007, the Network of Arab-American Professionals of New York (NAAP-NY) will host a forum to discuss the real versus perceived status of women in the Arab community. Women’s History Month was chosen as an appropriate time for the Arab-American community to probe sensitive topics such as political participation of women in the Arab world, domestic violence in the Arab-American community, the impact of war on women, and feminism in the Arab world.

An expert panel of academics, community activists and U.N. representatives will highlight different aspects of this issue by presenting statistics, case studies and analysis of the situation in the Arab world and the Arab-American community. Confirmed participants include: Abderrahim Foukara, Washington, DC Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera Arabic; Dr. Azza Karam, Senior Policy Research Advisor at the United Nations Development Program, in the Regional Bureau for Arab States. Dr. Karam coordinated the latest Arab Human Development Report on Arab women. Dr. Anny Bakalian, Associate Director, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center, Graduate Center, City University of New York and Board President of TAMKEEN: The Center for Arab American Empowerment, in Brooklyn. Dr. Aseel Sawalha, Urban Anthropologist and Pace University professor; member, Department of Criminal Justice, Sociology and Anthropology (New York).

Audience members will be encouraged to participate in a question and answer session to follow.

This event is co-sponsored by the Adult Education Committee at the New York Society for Ethical Culture as well as the Network of Arab-American Professionals of New York.

The Network of Arab-American Professionals of New York (NAAP-NY) is the fastest growing Arab-American organization in New York City. NAAP-NY is a non-partisan, volunteer-based organization dedicated to strengthening the Arab-American community. For more information please visit www.naaponline.org/ny.

Please RSVP to Rima Abdelkader at rima.abdelkader@gmail.com.

Dutch soldiers and Arab women

Dutch soldiers are being awarded medals for the heroism they displayed during the Sebrenica massacre in Bosnia in the mid 1990's. Now, I would understand if they were being awarded if they protected the civilians, but most of them died. How can the government recognize such failure with awards? This article from The Economist sheds some light.

TIME Magazine recently published a very useful write-up on the plight of Arab women in the fourth installment of the Arab Human Development Report. Some eye-opening information that can potentially depress and frustrate, but also coupled with some very good news.

Some excerpts below:

The report traces the predicament of Arab women to the region's longstanding patriarchal traditions of protection and "honor" wrapped into tribal identity. The authoritarian regimes that emerged with Arab independence a half century ago have undermined liberal institutions and values that might have better encouraged women's rights and protected them under a rule of law.

Women's prospects are further weakened by regressive Islamic jurisprudence that effectively codifies discrimination against women. So entrenched has this discrimination become, the report notes, that hundreds of popular Arab proverbs scorn women for having "half a mind, half a creed, half an inheritance."

Despite its gloomy picture of the current state of affairs, the report does highlight the heroic efforts of many Arab women and their male supporters to remedy the situation, and the gains they have made. In particular, it credits Arab novelists and filmmakers for publicizing women's suffering and offering models of hope. But in its conclusion, "Towards the Rise" recognizes the huge obstacles that remain. Unwilling to leave reform to government or Islamic leaders, the report calls for a "widespread and effective movement of struggle in Arab civil society" — a social revolution, really — to advance women's rights.

Such ideas that challenge the Arab world's patriarchal order will naturally meet fierce resistance. At the same time, they are sure to provoke debate throughout the Arab world. For the authors of "Towards the Rise" and the Arab women who take heart from their report, that will be a good first step but hopefully not the last.