Video interview: Mona Eltahawy and Leila Ahmed discuss FP "Why DoThey Hate US" piece

There has never been a clear and uncontroversial definition of religious fundamentalism and there is no consensus as to whether religious fundamentalism is a phenomenon, a movement, or a process. Nevertheless, having been exposed to religious fundamentalism in its fullest meaning after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian women and an analysis of their experience might offer a proper definition. This resource provides an overview of the discourses around the issue of stoning in Iran, and the strategies of the Stop Stoning Forever Campaign.

Women, alongside men, participated in the protest movements that shook the Arab world in 2011 demanding freedom, equality, justice and democracy. Women, as well as men, paid and continue to pay a high price for their struggles. Today women must be able to play their full part in building the futures of their countries. Women's participation in public and political life, on an equal basis with men, is an essential condition for democracy and social justice, values at the heart of the Arab spring.

Repression and state violence is likely to continue to plague the Middle East and North Africa in 2012 unless governments in the region and international powers wake up to the scale of the changes being demanded of them, Amnesty International warned today in a new report into the dramatic events of the last year.

In the 80-page Year of Rebellion: State of Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa, the organization describes how governments across the region were willing in 2011 to deploy extreme violence in an attempt to resist unprecedented calls for fundamental reform.

The aims of this paper are two-fold: to uncover barriers to equality in legal systems that restrict human rights along gender lines – patent and latent; and to propose possible ways to redress legal discrimination for accelerating human development.

The focus of evidence is from countries of Asia-Pacific. However, given widespread gender-linked gaps in justice systems, and similarities of legal challenges posed, the paper is expected to be relevant also for other similarly placed countries.

This gender-training manual is a result of Churches efforts to promote new images of masculinity in effort to stop violence against women. The publication is available for free download.

Introduction: For many years, women’s and feminist movements have been fighting on many fronts to eliminate violence against women. This struggle has highlighted the need to develop long- and medium-term strategies to generate the cultural, economic, and social changes necessary to transform the gender configuration that sustains this type of violence.

What's the connection between sexuality and the internet? Why is internet censorship often accompanied by regulation of sexualities? How do people in different parts of the world use the internet in the exercise of sexual rights? After 3 years of interrogation into the politics of sexuality and the internet, the EROTICS research is out! Full report:http://www.genderit.org/resources/erotics-sex-rights-and-internet-research-study

The TrustLaw website has a section which focuses on the issue of child marriage globally.

The concept of nondiscrimination and equal rights for both men and women in all spheres of their lives as enshrined in the CEDAW Convention (1979) and all other Human Rights Frameworks generated a new realization and discourse in the Islamic world. The Universal Declaration on human Rights (1948) states in Article one that ‘all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights’. By ratification of these International human rights frameworks States parties are in obligation to domesticate these human rights standard in their own legal system.

There are many reasons why Violence Against Women is possibly the most widespread and intractable human rights violations in human history: It is embedded in social structures; It is part of cultural customs; It is due to gender inequality; It is due to gender-based economic inequality; It is due to patriarchal strictures… the list of factors goes on and on and many have expounded on it.

Yet even while it is so entrenched an issue, many people have problems recognising gender-based violence even when they are come face-to-face with it simply because:

Helping Forced marriages and honour killings are often intertwined. Marriage can be forced to save honour, and women can be murdered for rejecting a forced marriage.^[5]

The issue of ‘honour’ is also one of links with the community. Unlike domestic violence, a woman who runs away from a forced marriage or honour killing will be severing links with her family and her culture. There may be no help coming from those parties.

14 June 2011 - GENEVA – Gender-biased sex selection reflects and fuels a culture of discrimination and violence, and must be addressed urgently by all segments of government and society as a matter of women’s human rights, five UN agencies have stressed. 

It is important to begin any discussion related to religious fundamentalism with an exploration of what is meant by the term “fundamentalism.” The word “fundamentalism” was originally coined in reference to a movement within the Protestant community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century. In the broadest sense, fundamentalism can be understood as “a selective retrieval and imposition of...[religious] law and sacred texts as the basis for a modern socio-political order” (Hardacre 1994:130).

This datasheet includes statistics from research in diverse countries that aims to explore barriers to gender equality. This includes: attitudes about men and women's roles within the household, early marriage, and data on healthcare and birth rates.

This article by Rebecca J. Cook examines the practice of female genital mutilation; the contexts in which it has been and is currently practiced, its forms and extent, social and health consequences, and professional responses. 

The Association for Women In Development (AWID) has compiled a useful reference tool for women human rights defenders, in collaboration with the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition.

The compilation lists research materials dealing with the security and protection of defenders, resources that women activists can consult concerning their wellbeing and self-care, manuals dealing with how to document and monitor violations of women’s rights, as well as manuals on the rights and mechanisms available to women human rights defenders at risk.

The General Assembly today adopted 52 resolutions and 6 decisions recommended to it by its Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), including one welcoming the establishment of “UN Women” and another that sets new standards governing the treatment of women prisoners.

Control and Sexuality examines zina laws in some Muslim contexts and communities in order to explore connections between the criminalisation of sexuality, gender-based violence and women’s rights activism. The Violence is Not Our Culture Campaign and the Women Living Under Muslim Laws network present this comparative study and feminist analysis of zina laws as a contribution to the broader objective of ending violence in the name of ‘culture’.

This paper deals specifically with faith-based organizations (FBOs) delivering services with the aim of contributing to the debates on religious organizations’ engagement with questions of gender. The paper presents no conclusions or generic findings about this heterogeneous group of actors; instead, by flagging a series of conundrums, it questions the ways in which FBOs have been framed as positive agents for the advancement of gender equality.

The Global Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls is an online resource in English, French and Spanish, designed to serve the needs of policymakers, programme implementers and other practitioners dedicated to addressing violence against women and girls. The Centre is an initiative of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), bringing together the valuable contributions of expert organizations and individuals, governments, United Nations sister agencies, and a wide range of relevant actors. Part of the overall effort is encouraging shared ownership of the site and ongoing partnership-building for its continuous development and sustainability.

Training Religious Leaders and Women of Faith on GBV and HIV

Women of faith have called attention to gender-based violence in their communities, citing a need for religious leaders to raise awareness of the issue and address it. Religious leaders and women of faith are well positioned to identify, validate, and promote best practices on preventing and reducing GBV as it relates to HIV.

On March 10, the Global Campaign To Stop Killing and Stoning Women (SKSW Campaign) hosted a forum to introduce the Women Re-claiming and Redefining Cultures (WRRC) programme and a screening of two video documentaries on violence against women and girls justified in the name of ‘culture'.

On 25 November 1960, Mirabel sisters were assassinated under the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. The incident gave impetus to the anti-regime movement, resulting in the fall of the dictatorship the following year. The lives of the Mirabel sisters, now known as the 'unforgettable butterflies', became a symbol for women in Latin America and the Caribbean in their struggle to combat violence against women. They declared Nov. 25 as the day for no violence in 1981, the observance of which soon spread to other parts of the world.