To commemorate World Refugee Day, celebrated each year on June 20th, AWID spoke to Yasmine Flitti, Director of Finance and Administration with Comede (Committee for the Health of Exiles) and Hélène Rama Niang Diagne, President and Founder of FECSDA (Women Education Culture Health and Development in Africa), to learn more about the issues and challenges of migration in the Mediterranean region from a feminist perspective.

To commemorate International Domestic Workers’ Day on June 16th, AWID spoke to Sawsan Abdulrahim, professor of health science at the American University of Beirut, to learn about the issues and challenges in unionizing domestic workers in Lebanon.

FRIDAY FILE: As we commemorate the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence (25 November to 10 December) under the theme “let’s challenge militarism and end gender-based violence”, AWID speaks to Lisa Davis, Human Rights Advocacy Director at MADRE, and to Nurcan Baysal, Kurdish activist and writer for the Turkish electronic journalT24, to learn more about the sexual and other violations of women’s and girls’ rights with the insurgency of the self-proclaimed "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS).

FRIDAY FILE: Palestinians, and people globally who stand in solidarity with Palestine, commemorate Land Day every March 30. On this day in 1976 thousands of Palestinians embarked on a general strike and protests against the Israeli government’s announcement to confiscate large portions of Palestinian lands for new Israeli settlements. The protests resulted in six Palestinians being killed, and hundreds injured and arrested by Israeli forces. Land Day has been commemorated every year since. 

By Mégane Ghorbani

AWID recently spoke with Ayat Mneina, co-founder of the Libyan Youth Movement, on the evolving civil war in Libya following the uprising, and subsequent fall of Gaddafi.

AWID strongly condemns Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza and calls for an immediate end to aggression by all sides.

23 July 2014

The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) strongly condemns the alarming escalation of violence against the civilians of Gaza since the Israeli Defense Forces launched “Operation Protective Edge” on 7th July 2014, including the recent expansion to a ground invasion, breaking the November 2012 ceasefire.

For the past year, Israelis and Palestinians have been participating in a weekly demonstration against the evacuation of Palestinian families from their houses in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Last summer, in the midst of the demonstrations,a feminist debate flared up on the internet following the request of organizers of the "Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement", who asked protesters to come to the demonstrations dressed in a way that respects the values of the Palestinian residents of the neighborhood.

FRIDAY FILE: Fifty four years ago, in 1956, Tunisia adopted its Personal Status Code, the most progressive legislation in terms of women’s rights in the Arab world. What provisions of this law safeguard women’s rights and interests within marriage and in the event of divorce? How does the Code promote equality between men and women?

By Massan d’Almeida

Marriage

Little known stories from North Africa are told in this volume published by the Feminist Press.

For millennia, women in North Africa have expressed themselves through writing first in hieroglyphics and then in Latin, Greek, Arabic, French and English alphabets. This is a distinct advantage that North Africans as a whole have as compared to the rest of Africa in which a writing tradition is not as old.

FRIDAY FILE - On August 1, 2014, the constitutional court of Uganda overturned the discriminatory anti-gay law passed through parliament on December 20, 2013. However, the decision was based on procedural technicalities rather than on the substance of the law, which goes against freedom of sexual orientation and gender identity.

By Mégane Ghorbani