Launch of the report: Gender Justice & the Law – Assessment of laws affecting gender equality in the Arab States region

November 26, 2018

Date: 10-11 December 2018
Location:
Beirut, Lebanon

The discussions organized during the launch event (day 1) and subsequent technical workshop (day 2) will provide an opportunity to highlight the key challenges in the region to eliminate gender discrimination in the law and ensure women’s access to justice and their legal protection.

Each country report highlights the main legal barriers preventing women’s access to justice and legal protection from GBV in the Arab States. Furthermore, country level findings are summarized in a 2 pager to highlight the deficits between national laws and international standards and the steps that will be needed to achieve many of the targets agreed upon in the Sustainable Development Goals.

The objectives of the Dialogue are to widely share and disseminate the country findings with key government representatives; judges, prosecutors and lawyers; parliamentarians; women’s machineries, women and youth rights activists from the Arab region and beyond.

In particular, the dialogue and workshop will aim to:

A) Highlight the status of gender justice and the law in the region, and stress that law reform will constitute a key driver for achieving SDGs across the Arab region;

B) Facilitate the ownership by national governments and encourage their commitments to introduce potential future reform in the penal codes, family law, nationality law and labor laws;

C) Create media interest in the topic to support future advocacy for law changes and reforms;

D) Identify potential regional and national evidence based advocacy initiatives to improve gender justice in the region;

E) Leverage strategic regional partnerships on gender justice with regional structures;

F) Raise awareness of the online legal database (e-platform) launched by UNDP, UN Women, and CAWTAR in 2016. It includes more than 3600 laws, as well as legal profiles from 20 Arab Countries, all of which are searchable through an online portal.

Check out the Gender justice and the law study

Facts and figues  

Read Mourad Wahba opening statement, Director, Regional Bureau for Arab States, United Nations Development Programme  

Media advisory

New Study on Gender Justice & the Law in the Arab States Region:Challenges persist as Arab Countries advance on Laws affecting Gender Equality

The agenda