Yes to Completing the Path of Transformation in Arab Countries

Yes to freedom, social justice, democracy, and equality between women and men. Yes to the universality of women’s rights.

On International Women’s Day, the Arab Women’s Forum – Aisha sends its warmest feminist greetings to the women of the world, to the resilient activists who constantly face attempts to undermine their achievements and rights and return them to eras of ignorance and backwardness. The popular revolutions striving for freedom, democracy, and social justice are accompanied by serious threats to the concept and substance of the national state, aimed at fragmenting countries and creating widespread chaos in the region, a chaos led by ruling dictatorships and extremist political Islamist movements that primarily target women, their destinies, and their rights in both the private and public spheres. On International Women’s Day, the Arab Women’s Forum – Aisha affirms that the important achievements made by the feminist movement in some countries are in the context of democratic transformations. However, the response of the ruling regimes to the demands of the feminist movement has not risen to the level of sacrifices and struggles waged by the Arab feminist movement, and this slow progress in women’s human rights remains vulnerable to threat and infringement unless it is accompanied by practical steps and measures that contribute to consolidating national states based on democracy, equality, social justice, and equal citizenship between women and men. Depriving women of their universal human rights contributes to the continued absence of a state of justice and democracy and to creating an environment supportive of all forms of extremism and terrorism. Therefore, the Arab Women’s Forum calls for the recognition of women’s rights equal to men’s rights and the implementation of all international charters and agreements related to women’s rights. It also calls for an end to all practices against them by all conflicting parties (including states and the Israeli occupation) and to stop the use and targeting of women in wars and armed conflicts on the path to establishing and embodying democratic civil states that guarantee the exercise of equal and full citizenship between men and women. Completing the path of transformations in the region and reaching its inevitable conclusion with the victory of the people and the establishment of democratic concepts and practices will only be completed by ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian and occupied Arab territories, and building a real negotiating path in countries witnessing armed conflicts, with the effective and balanced participation of women and in order to achieve civil peace based on a new social contract, which guarantees full equality between all citizens, women and men, a social contract that relies on the reference of human rights in all its documents that transcend local and national charters and laws.

Let us stand united against all forms of occupation, tyranny, despotism, and extremism. Let us all work to protect women and ensure their human rights.

Organizations of the Arab Women’s Forum – Aisha

Jordan: Arab Women’s Organization

Tunisia: Tunisian Association of Democratic Women

Palestine: Women’s Studies Center, Childhood Center Nazareth, Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD), Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC), Women’s Affairs Center – Gaza, CWLRCP

Syria: Syrian Women’s League

Lebanon: Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering, Al Najda Al Ijtimaiya Association

Egypt: El Nadeem Center, New Woman Foundation

Morocco: Bridges – Moroccan Women’s Forum, Feminist Action Union, Moroccan Association for the Defense of Women’s Rights