Arab Women's Activism and Socio-Political Transformation by Sahar Khamis & Amel Mili

Author:Sahar Khamis & Amel Mili
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Article 49 provides that no constitutional amendment may alter the human rights and freedoms granted by the constitution . It places the gender gains of Tunisian women beyond the reach of any future constitutional amendments. The article is compared to Article 8 of the 1959 constitution , which precludes any violation of “the principle of popular sovereignty, republican values, human rights , and privileges granted by the code of personal status .”

6.4 The Struggle for Equal Rights

By advocating for a brand-new constitution rather than a mere amendment to the 1959 version, Tunisian civil society in general, and women’s organizations in particular, played a gamble of high risk/high rewards, and won. Women’s organizations in other Arab Spring countries had a much more difficult struggle with far more mixed results. Yet the terms of the struggle were by and large the same: a debate about state models that quickly devolves into a debate about gender relations and the role of women in society, superimposed on a debate about the role of religion in public life.

In Egypt , gender activists had to fight against religion-inspired parties and organizations, such as the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood , who are vehemently opposed to women’s rights and gender equality . In Yemen , women’s organizations militated successfully in favor of laws that criminalize domestic violence against women, and laws that raise the age of marriage for young women, despite violent opposition from religion-inspired parties and advocacy organizations which claim that these laws are incompatible with Islam.

In Libya , religious parties and organizations kicked into action very soon after the fall of the Qadafi regime, seeking to enact laws that allow polygamy, forbid women from traveling without an approved male companion, and forbid mixing genders in public spaces . So much so that in one of his first official declarations as president of the National Transitional Council, Mustapha Abdeljalil announced that he would lift the legal constraints that were imposed by the Qadafi regime on polygamy on the grounds that they were in contradiction with Islamic law. This was followed by a religious edict that the religious authorities of Libya issued in April 2013 prohibiting women from traveling without an approved male companion. The climate of chaos and uncertainty that prevails in Libya , as well as the increasing political clout of religious factions, makes the struggle for women’s rights even more difficult, and the prospects of positive outcomes for women even more remote.

Hence the pretext of applying Sharia law remains the weapon of choice of the opponents of women’s rights . Interestingly, even though Sharia law deals with a broad range of legal issues, such as criminal law, civil law, constitutional law, and business law, the opponents of women’s rights reduce it to the few articles that deal with women. Also, through the ages, Sharia law has merged with patriarchal social traditions that are alien to it, and it is being used as a convenient vehicle to enforce these archaic gender-hostile traditions under the cover of adhering to divine commandments.

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