In addressing violence against women in the Arab world, Alkarama focuses on a type of violence that is often overlooked by many human rights organisations: violence perpetrated or condoned by the state against female citizens. In many contexts, women are not only subjected to physical, sexual and psychological violence, including arbitrary arrest, torture and degrading treatment by repressive state authorities, but sometimes they are also subjected to psychological violence as a result of the violation of the rights of a member of their family: their husband, son, father or brother, arbitrarily detained, sometimes for decades, or abducted by the state apparatus, and the suffering of the mothers and wifes of the disappeared is perhaps the best testimony to this psychological violence.
This year marks 25 years since the “A/RES/54/134” Resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on 17 December 1999, declaring “25 November” as the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women”, to reflect on the progress and achievements made to eliminate this type of violence.
According to the “Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women” adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 December 1993 (A/RES/48/104), violence against women shall be understood to encompass physical, sexual and psychological violence (1) occurring in the family, (2) occurring within the general community, (3) perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs.
Alkarama's activities
Over the years, Alkarama has contributed to highlighting issues of violations against women in the Arab world, especially those who are engaged in peaceful struggles for human rights and against injustice.
In recognition of the struggles of Arab women, Alkarama has chosen Palestinian lawyer and activist Shirin Issawi as its 2014 Person of the Year and presented her with the Alkarama Human Rights Defenders Award, a symbolic, non-material prize awarded annually on International Human Rights Day to an individual or organisation that has effectively contributed to the promotion and protection of human rights in the Arab world. As soon as Issawi returned to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, she and her family were again subjected to repression and violations by the occupation in retaliation for their peaceful resistance, especially after their participation in the 2014 Dignity Award for Human Rights Defenders in Geneva.
In Saudi Arabia, Alkarama followed the cases of several women human rights defenders who had been repressed and arrested, including Samar Badawi, the wife of Saudi activist Waleed Abu al-Khair, and submitted a communication to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders before she was released. According to human rights sources, 87 women have been arbitrarily arrested in Saudi Arabia in recent years, most of them during the reign of King Salman and his Crown Prince.
In Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and other Arab countries, there are dozens of examples of authorities failing to meet their obligations under international law to prohibit and criminalise violence against women.