New Seminar for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in the Middle East 

On the dates of November 14 and 17, Casa Árabe’s headquarters in Madrid hosted a new event among the specialized preparatory seminars organized by the Gender Area in the Masar Program.

As part of the cooperation between the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Spanish International Development Cooperation Agency (AECID) for the Masar Program gender strategy, which supports democratic governance in North Africa and the Middle East, Casa Árabe hosted some of the work days during the Specialized Seminar on Violence Towards Women and the Criminal Code, which took place from November 13 to 17.

The seminar brought together ten women members of parliament, judges and lawyers from six Arab countries:  Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, all members of the regional Arab Women’s Legal Network (AWLN). Also taking part in the seminar were Spanish experts Beatriz Quintanilla, a professor at UCM, Laura Seara, a former State Secretary for Equality, and Magistrates María Tardón and Carmen Delgado, as well as Judge Gonzalo Laguna.

During the seminar, the status of gender-related violence in Spain was analyzed, and in the six Arab countries, where significant advancements have been made in recent years, as evidenced by both the Tunisian law on gender-related violence enacted last August, leading to a pioneering, all-encompassing standard in the region, and the modifications to the Algerian criminal code, which have meant substantial advancements in the goal of fighting violence against women.

The seminar’s goal was to promote the experts’ participation in identifying challenges and guidelines for change aimed at gender equality and defending women’s rights in each of these countries, thereby helping to guide the AECID’s future work proposals in the region.

Throughout these sessions, proposals were gathered for strengthening the legal and social focuses and measures for protecting women who fall victim to violence, to enrich and harmonize laws, improve assistance services and build on the training of all the role-players involved (judges, police, etc.). These proposals will contribute to starting up initiatives which lead to greater protection and empowerment of women and, ultimately, social change towards equality.