Monitoring press freedom and international affairs from Mid-Missouri Public Radio and the Missouri School of Journalism

Arab women see changing rights climate [rebroadcast]

27 December 2018
Ammal Farahat, who has signed up to be a driver for Careem, a regional ride-hailing service that is a competitor to Uber, drives her car in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, June 24, 2018. After lifting a longstanding ban on women driving, it's the latest job opening for Saudi women that had been reserved for men only. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

In late June, the first Saudi women to legally drive a car in the kingdom started their engines and took off down the road.

The lifting of Saudi Arabia’s ban on female drivers was a step forward for women. But it’s just one of a number of recent steps forward for women’s rights in the Arab world.

Countries like Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanon have passed laws ending legal loopholes that let rapists off the hook for marrying their victim. Some countries have rolled back exemptions for those who commit so-called “honor killings” of female family members.

Still, many women’s rights advocates are only cautiously optimistic. In some countries, laws aimed at helping women aren’t enforced. Nor are public attitudes toward women’s rights necessarily becoming more progressive.

On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at women's rights in the Arab world.

 

Joining the program:

  • Liz Sly, a Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post
  • Gabriella Nassif, research consultant with the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University
  • Nafeesa Syeed, a journalist and co-author of the 2014 book Arab Women Rising
  • Valentine Moghadam, professor of sociology and international affairs at Northeastern University

 

Producers: Rosemary Belson, Yanqi Xu

Note this program first aired on July 12, 2018.

Monitoring press freedom and international affairs from Mid-Missouri Public Radio and the Missouri School of Journalism.
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