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Women’s struggle for socio-political participation in the Arab world
May 08, 20187:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In English, with simultaneous translation into Spanish.
Within the framework of the seminar Women’s leadership and participation in Arab countries, Casa Árabe has organized this conference, in which four experts analyze the situation for women in the region.
Two months after International Women’s Day, it is now a good time to stop and take a look at the situation in Arab countries. The social changes over the last decade in many of the MENA region’s countries may be seen from different vantage points, ranging from inequality in gaining access, sectarianism and gender-related violence to positive indicators of political participation through the media, art, urban mobilizations and even the polls at election time. The way in which women have lived these changes merits a space for sharing experiences, whether in terms of marginalization or empowerment, and thus for analyzing the degree of participation by women in the socio-political arena.
The conference will include talks by Manal Al Dowayan, an independent Saudi artist; Hania Helweh, a judge and President of the Civil Court of Lebanon; Faten Kallel, former State Secretary of Tunisia’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, and Nada Nashat, defense coordinator at the Center for Legal Assistance of Egyptian Women (CEWLA). Moderated by: Ana López Castelló, of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
The conference is being held as part of the seminar Women’s leadership and participation in Arab countries, which will also include the participation of Reem Khalifa, an independent journalist from Bahrain, and Rauda Morcos, a Palestinian activist for LGBT rights.
The conference will include talks by Manal Al Dowayan, an independent Saudi artist; Hania Helweh, a judge and President of the Civil Court of Lebanon; Faten Kallel, former State Secretary of Tunisia’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, and Nada Nashat, defense coordinator at the Center for Legal Assistance of Egyptian Women (CEWLA). Moderated by: Ana López Castelló, of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
The conference is being held as part of the seminar Women’s leadership and participation in Arab countries, which will also include the participation of Reem Khalifa, an independent journalist from Bahrain, and Rauda Morcos, a Palestinian activist for LGBT rights.
Manal Al Dowayan is an independent Saudi
artist whose work includes black and white photography, sculpture,
video, sound and large-scale participatory installations. Her artistic
practice revolves around topics of active forgetting, archives and the
collective memory, with a special emphasis placed on the status of Saudi
women and the way they are portrayed. Her participatory projects have
led hundreds of women to use art as a new platform for tackling social
injustice, including Tree of Guardians, Esmi-My Name and Suspended
Together.
Hania Helweh is a judge and the president of the monetary, commercial and civil status chamber of the court of first instance in northern Lebanon. She is the key person at the Ministry of Justice in the field of children’s justice. She has been trained on cyber-safety studies at the Marshall Center in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany) and earned a Master’s degree in Criminal Law at the University of Lebanon. She has directly worked on women’s rights and was a panelist at the Regional Forum of Justice for Women held in Casablanca, Morocco.
Faten Kallel is an independent Tunisian politician who has held the position of State Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports (2016-2017). Before joining the government, Faten Kallel was responsible for the Smart Tunis initiative, put on by the Ministry of Communication and the Digital Economy. She has an MBA from the University of Paris-Dauphine. In March of 2017, she was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.
Nada Nashat is the defense coordinator at the Center for Legal Assistance of Egyptian Women (CEWLA), whose headquarters is located in Cairo, Egypt. She has taken part in different international events related with human rights and women’s rights, including the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Prior to that, Nada was the coordinator of the amendment of the planned Personal Status Law (PSL) for the same organization, which was intended to promote access to justice and eradicate inequalities between the genders
Hania Helweh is a judge and the president of the monetary, commercial and civil status chamber of the court of first instance in northern Lebanon. She is the key person at the Ministry of Justice in the field of children’s justice. She has been trained on cyber-safety studies at the Marshall Center in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (Germany) and earned a Master’s degree in Criminal Law at the University of Lebanon. She has directly worked on women’s rights and was a panelist at the Regional Forum of Justice for Women held in Casablanca, Morocco.
Faten Kallel is an independent Tunisian politician who has held the position of State Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports (2016-2017). Before joining the government, Faten Kallel was responsible for the Smart Tunis initiative, put on by the Ministry of Communication and the Digital Economy. She has an MBA from the University of Paris-Dauphine. In March of 2017, she was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader.
Nada Nashat is the defense coordinator at the Center for Legal Assistance of Egyptian Women (CEWLA), whose headquarters is located in Cairo, Egypt. She has taken part in different international events related with human rights and women’s rights, including the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Prior to that, Nada was the coordinator of the amendment of the planned Personal Status Law (PSL) for the same organization, which was intended to promote access to justice and eradicate inequalities between the genders