Women and politics in Arab countries

In collaboration with the Arab Network for Democratic Elections (ANDE), the Forum for Women in Politics, the Arab Region, organized a conference on January 24, during which it launched its third annual report on the ‘The Status of Women in Politics in the Arab Region’. The report stresses the political participation of Arab women and their active role in the popular uprisings. In its first part, the report analyzed the current status of women’s engagement in political parties, unions and the three (executive, Judiciary and legislative) branches of the government across three geographic areas, namely North Africa and West Asia and the Arab Gulf and Yemen. It tackled the conditions of women in parliamentary elections during the period between 2018 and the beginning of 2019 in each of Lebanon, Iraq and Bahrain, as well as the municipal elections in Tunisia and Bahrain, including the electoral process and its outcomes and the female participation, as both electorates and candidates. Regarding the protests, the above report explains that since the outbreak of so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in 2010, women were in the frontlines. And with the development of the feminist movement in the region, women contributed to political, social and legal achievements. On the other hand, the report pointed out that women’s involvement in the public sphere was not okay or easy. Women had to pay a heavy price and are still struggling to maintain their public and private endeavors up to reaching gender justice. (NNA, January 24, 2020)