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5/1/2012
Libya: 'Libya's 10% Parliament Quota for Women'

PRESS RELEASE

The Libyan Human Rights Alliance, along with numerous civil society activists and organizations, find the Libyan Draft Election Law released On January 1 2012 by The National Transitional Council to be unreasonable. Within this Draft Law, Article 1 stated that there would in fact be a parliamentary quota for women; however it is quite vague and reads as the quota will be limited to 10%, or 20 out of 200 seats.

15/12/2011
Mali: 'Mali's New Family Law: Women's Rights Denied, Discrimination Upheld'

For more than 10 years, women in Mali have been waiting for the adoption of a Family law to protect their fundamental rights. Last week (2 December 2011), the Malian Parliament adopted a text which – far from increasing protection – eliminates rights and perpetuates discrimination.

1/12/2011
Canada: 'B.C. Supreme Court upholds ban on polygamy

A judge in British Columbia has decided that Canada's ban of polygamy does not violate the country's Charter of Rights.

B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman issued his decision Wednesday, saying that while the ban does indeed violate the freedom-of-religion rights of those practising polygamy, polygamy brings such harm to women and children that they outweigh those rights.

1/12/2011
Iran: "Iranian Women fight controversial 'polygamy' bill"

On a summer night in 2008, the wives of some Iranian members of Parliament started receiving phone calls.

“Would you mind if I married your husband – just for a week?” asked the female voice on the end of the line.

The callers argued that taking another wife is a Muslim man’s right. By allowing it, the MPs’ wives would be performing a good Islamic deed. Some of the wives hung up in shock.

17/11/2011
Pakistan: 'A Safer Place for Women'

The passage of the landmark ‘The Prevention of Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Act 2011’ through parliament marks an 

12/11/2011
Libya: CLADEM Stands in Solidarity with Women Living Under Muslim Laws

CLADEM[1] states its deep concern and indignation on account of the public
 statements made by the National Transition Council (NTC) of Libya on October
23rd last, declaring that the "Sharia" (Islamic Law) shall be a source of
 legislation for the new regime, establishing the immediate incorporation of 
polygamy, without any impediments, based on the fact that the Islamic Law 
does not prohibit it.



1/11/2011
Israel/Lebanon: 'The Making of a Secular Democracy: Law, Marriage, and Empirical Irrelevance in Israel and Lebanon'

On any given weekend, Israeli and Lebanese citizens can be found standing together in an orderly line before a Cypriot magistrate. They shuffle forward, couple by couple, in line to get married. The distance to Cyprus is roughly the same for an Israeli or a Lebanese couple, as is the reason why these couples choose to get married there. And no, it is not due to the beautiful weather, the beaches, or the nightlife in Cyprus, which most Israelis and Lebanese would insist to the reader, with a swish of nationalist bravado, are inferior. These are not marriages between Lebanese and Israelis. Rather, these couples leave their countries and travel by boat or by plane to a country that has what Israel and Lebanon both lack: a civil marriage law. To put it more simply, they do not have a marriage law that is adjudicated by secular, and not religious, authorities. Despite the fact that interfaith marriages cannot take place in either country, in Lebanon the lack of civil marriage is understood to index both the lack of secularism and liberalism and the primordial and patriarchal nature of the Lebanese state, while Israel continues to enjoy the ideological capital that its status as “the only [secular] democracy in the Middle East” ensures and unleashes.

19/10/2011
Argentina: 'Women in Rural Argentina Speak Out on Climate Change'

RESISTENCIA, Argentina, Oct 13, 2011 (IPS) - Rural and indigenous women in northern Argentina, hit hard by the expanding agricultural frontier, deforestation and the spraying of toxic pesticides, spoke out about their problems and set forth proposals for discussion at the next global summit on climate change. They did so at the Women's Hearing on Gender and Climate Justice 2011-Argentina, held Tuesday Oct. 11 in Resistencia, the capital of Chaco province, 950 km north of Buenos Aires, attended by representatives of organisations from the northern 10 of the country's 23 provinces.

18/10/2011
India: 'Indian SC gives Hindu women equal property rights'

NEW DELHI: A Hindu woman or girl will have equal property rights along with other male relatives for any partition made in intestate succession after September 2005, the Indian Supreme Court has ruled, the Press Trust of India reported.

A bench of justices R M Lodhaand Jagdish Singh Khehar in a judgment said that under the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, the daughters are entitled to equal inheritance rights along with other male siblings, which was not available to them prior to the amendment.

3/10/2011
Tunisia: 'Tunisia is Leading the Way on Women's Rights in the Middle East'

Last December, Tunisians rose up against their dictator, triggering a political earthquake that has sent shockwaves through most of the Middle East and north Africa. Now, Tunisia is leading the way once again – this time on the vexed issue of gender equality. It has become the first country in the region to withdraw all its specific reservations regarding CEDAW – the international convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.