CAWTAR launches yet a new portal on Arab women

The Center of Arab Women for Training and Research, CAWTAR, launched an electronic portal devoted to the legal and human rights of women and men. The website http://www.arabwomenlegal-emap.org is intended to be an informative tool bringing together all the legislations related to the legal and human rights conditions as well as gender equality in some 20 Arab states. Its main purpose is to promote gender equality through enhancing access of national and regional partners to the required data. The new portal will enable its users to search for special laws on different themes, including education, health, violence, political participation, contribution to economy, access to justice and the right to establish relevant legislations in each country. It will also provide detailed information on all Arab countries with a particular focus on measures taken by governments to comply with its international commitments and observation of gender equality. In addition, the new portal will allow for comparisons between different countries on various topics and indexes. Currently, the website will be available in Arabic only but will soon also be available in English and as a smart phone application (womenlegalemap). Finally, it should be noted that the recently-launched portal is the outcome of cooperation between the UNDP, UN Women and CAWTAR and has received funding from the Finnish Foreign Ministry and the Arab Gulf Development Program. (Al Mustaqbal, March 30, 2016)