Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:04 Hello, and welcome to woman off of the middle East podcast. This podcast relates to the realities of Arab women and their rich and diverse experiences. It's aims to present the multiplicity of women's voices and it wishes to break cultural stereotypes about women of the middle East, as well as educate and empower the younger generation of middle Eastern woman who are stripped off their historical reference. And weren't necessarily raised to believe in their agency and power to create their own destiny. Um, I'm, <inaudible>, I'm a feminist scholar and educator. I'm also the author of Arab woman and Arab news, all stereotypes. And you meet you. I created this podcast to be an extension and an update of the book and its main topics.
Speaker 0 00:00:54 Hello, and welcome to the second episode in which I would start by taking a universal approach towards defining Arab woman, positioning them into a bigger frame of reference, to establish proper acquaintance. They're a woman as a flesh and blood to human being, living in 22 countries and territories amongst some 314 million people spanning another in Africa and Western Asia, she's illiterate and she lives in abject poverty. She's blessed with unimaginable was enjoying near universal literacy. She lives under the rule of governments that are oppressive and governments that are more important. She's a sister, wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, and cousin. She's the vital tissue binding her immediate and extended family together. She's educated with doctoral and medical degrees. She holds titles in universities and labors on the streets. She works as a teacher and converse and the press, and also in science, engineering, technology, banking, literature, journalism, and the arts.
Speaker 0 00:02:08 She's an educated housewife and an educated woman. She's an exhausted modern professional wife and mother balancing family and work she's at this situ divorcing and widow with little family support, she's a divorcee or widow or enjoys overwhelming family support. She's a young school girl who leaves for school each day with hope and confidence and what she can be. She's a young school girl who must bring courage and resolve to the classroom because her educational rights are ignored. And sometimes the tucked, she lives in rich families and poor families and families facing cultural, political, and psychological pressures. She's politically quiet and politically aware and active. Her womanhood makes little to her identity in the world. Her womanhood makes a great deal of difference. She cares passionately about the future for children. Does this sound more of how you would describe women everywhere? What is the Arab woman is no different from women everywhere.
Speaker 0 00:03:23 If you remember this episode began on the premise of universality and which I'm positioning Arab woman give to I'm doing that without losing the specificities of these women's realities at the heartfelt is diversity. Diversity is what makes women very unique within the geographical context of the middle East. I chose the middle East as a geographical, but moreover as an epistemological reference, acknowledging its colonial baggage, but for the lack of a better reference, I would continue using the term to talk about the wealth of women's experiences and then an area that covers within East and North Africa and also making references to Iran and Turkey also are the Arab woman definition gives a false ethnic homogeneous team that transcends religious and sectarian affiliation. The middle Eastern Norman, I believe does more than that does more than that by transcending religious, as well as ethnic limitations to include Arabs and non Arabs, Muslims and non Muslims.
Speaker 0 00:04:35 And the next segment, I would zoom in to talk about how COVID-19 has impacted the lives of women in the middle East. COVID-19 taught us many lessons I've written recently and a local newspaper about these lessons and stressed on the realization that we're all together, regardless of the fact that many of us aren't on the receiving end of the same social or financial privileges, the pandemic exposed to the inequalities in our communities that were already there, but have been heightened by either the lockdown or other living aspects that have changed and have been challenged you to the pandemic. We were introduced to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Those who didn't have the luxury of social distancing those home and losing their daily wages have lost their livelihoods. And those who's abused intensified during the lockdown, during the pandemic, the intersection between the individual and the collective spaces have become bigger and we cannot turn a blind eye anymore to these injustices.
Speaker 0 00:05:36 It is our duty as groups and individuals to expose address and stop all practices of injustice and our communities to leave it a better place. After we're gone, I will talk to dr. <inaudible>, who is the Mina regional gender coordinator at the Oxfam international Luxor had the possess has more than 20 years of and international development and gender justice. She has worked extensively in the middle East Africa, central Asia and Canada, and areas of gender democracy, democratization, processes, integrity, and poverty elevation. She has worked with international organizations, academic institutions, and local governments. She has deep knowledge of civil society in the middle East, as well as the challenges and potentials of the region.
Speaker 2 00:06:26 My name is <inaudible>. I'm the regional gender justice coordinator in, uh, Oxford international. Um, Oxfam has offices in 10 countries in the middle East and North Africa. And I work specifically on the gender justice issues. This covers women, economic empowerment, violence against women, women, peace, and security, uh, women's political participation and women leadership. The challenges that women go through aren't necessarily new,
Speaker 0 00:06:57 But the pandemic have kind of brought it to the surface and highlighted, what have you been covering? And what's the areas you've been in
Speaker 2 00:07:05 Covering as well as, you know, Oxfam is a humanitarian and a developmental organization, meaning that we usually have responses for crisis and for situations that people find themselves. And so it could be Wars, natural disasters or endemics. So in that sense, as soon as the COVID-19 crisis started in the region, uh, we had rabid responses in all our, all the countries we work on, where we develop, uh, country response plans together with the teams on the ground. Um, we made sure that when the government government started the response for COVID-19 while women are the first respondents and they are usually the first to face the pandemic, they were rarely seen in the response committees or in the groups that are assigned to, uh, to follow up on these issues. So we made a close attention close eye on into these things and making sure to collect them what we call gender segregated, that to understand how the dynamic is affecting women and the women and girls in particular and what women are doing and what are the issues that are raised, as you said, the usually women are disadvantaged, but the bender mic just showed how much they are disadvantaged.
Speaker 2 00:08:33 Uh, so, um, uh, immediately there were two issues that Amir to the surface one is, uh, the burden on unpaid care work. And the, how much women have to do is especially to, to respond to the event dynamics. So not only they, eh, the, the chores at home increase the care for the children who were increase the care for the second elderly and disabled increase the, the, um, the family staying at home and, uh, you know, needing more attention and cleaning and cooking and all that.
Speaker 3 00:09:09 The other issue, which was also a global
Speaker 2 00:09:11 Phenomena was related to the violence against women and how women who were kept in inside the house with their abusers sometimes, and couldn't seek any help because of the procedures around demand dynamic. So Oxfam published two reports about the burden of unpaid care work. And there are also, we are working on the ground to find the immediate responses like small grants, uh, for, uh, civil society organizations, uh, who are, uh, who were able to put together some kind of responses, especially community responses. So in Palestine, in Tunisia and Morocco and Jordan, we had immediately mobilize some funds for the civil society organizations to respond to the violence against women. In Jordan, in particular, we worked very hard to secure access and buses because you know how, eh, the government's issued some kind of wear mitts for movement during closure closure and look down, but they didn't see, uh, the dynamic of violence against women as an excuse for movement.
Speaker 2 00:10:19 So our office in Jordan in particular health securing, uh, contacting authorities and, uh, supporting our partners to get access to the women who are victims of violence, we made sure that all our response lands have gender responses, um, working on economic resiliency, reaching out to informal workers, for example, in some countries where a domestic workers found themselves without jobs, uh, responding to violence against women at the same time, uh, we were very quick to, uh, mobilize, uh, to invite actually civil society organizations in the region to come together, to coordinate amongst themselves. So together with the UN women, with the, um, uh, green know some, some international organizations like <inaudible> Oxfam
Speaker 3 00:11:13 Came together and we had established a network of more than 40 women
Speaker 2 00:11:18 And organizations to coordinate their responses
Speaker 3 00:11:22 As to the woman and countries that don't have an active civil society it's society. And don't have NGLs,
Speaker 2 00:11:29 Depending on the context, there are different ways of working and in some contexts where the civil society is very weak or cannot, there are no civil society organizations, um, Oxfam, uh, helps in forming what we call community committees. These community committees are formed at the community level, uh, from people who live in these disadvantaged communities, for example, uh, communities who lack access to water and sanitation or organizations who lack access to a protection services. So we form these committees and we work through them in other places where we need to coordinate with local governments. We do coordinate with them, uh, to secure access to humanitarian services, or to reach out to the remote areas where nobody can be there at the same time. Um, we, we strengthen the civil society organizations because also we believe that they are more sustainable than us. They will stay after we leave if we are in a certain location or a certain country, because they, in the context better.
Speaker 2 00:12:39 Um, as you rightly said, for example, during the look down and closures, it was very hard for women, for example, to act Sharia courts or to access, uh, uh, lawyers to ask for, uh, divorce or custody is a so, uh, we w through our networks, we helped secure some kind of access, uh, to this woman. Um, especially in places, like I told you, the, this network, which we coordinated, uh, uh, women were able to exchange information and knowledge about what can be done in Egypt. For example, they were very quick to activate, uh, online course, uh, where, uh, if there's an urgent need for a hearing, uh, the, the, the, um, the judge can meet, uh, with the, uh, with the victim or with the person online. Yeah. And, uh, solve a case, uh, in, in places like in Palestine, for example, where courts were closed, the civil society organizations, we work with help women to seek shelter shelters, or to get services online, uh, in Lebanon, where we, our hour reduced online materials on coping mechanisms, on how women can deal with the violence situation, what kind of coping mechanisms and responses they can do for themselves, where are you able to reach to a Syrian refugees, woman, refugees, and how about many women?
Speaker 2 00:14:17 Our two largest operations in the region are actually in Yemen and Syria. Uh, so, uh, in addition, we help Syrian refugees in Lebanon and in Jordan, COVID-19 in these vulnerable situations where, uh, people cannot even break the social distancing or, uh, uh, cannot have access to enough water to maintain sanitation and the clean wash their hands, et cetera. So wherever, um, wherever are we help the refugees to secure the basic needs, including access to water and sanitation, including access to protection services in some areas where the refugees were suffering from stigma, they were attacked because they are refugees. They were blamed some in some countries, they will blame just like accused of, of communicating the pandemic, which is not true in Yemen in particular is very, very tough place. As you know, and the, uh, for our teams on the ground, it's not only the endemic.
Speaker 2 00:15:29 They have to struggle also with the cholera, with the rain, with the floods, with the, uh, of course the different security issues. I couldn't have access to the offices. And for some time we had, uh, our teams working from home and trying to help as much as they can. Uh, so, uh, it is navigating very, very difficult situations, especially for women, but, uh, in general for, for the whole population. And as I told you, depending on the context, that's where, how we work in, uh, in Jordan, for example, we work with the Syrian refugees in different ways. Uh, but, uh, we have a very successful project in Jordan focusing on recycling and, uh, the women in the refugee camp of Zachary
Speaker 3 00:16:18 For the sake of our audience, who don't necessarily know about what women go through. If you had to list some of the main issues that came in that you had to deal with, what would those issues be? We'll actually, I will,
Speaker 2 00:16:34 Yeah. Borrow and use the discussions that happened in the network that I told you about have more than 40 women organizations from the region coming together in response for COVID-19. Uh, there were, the discussions showed that there are four major issues and these four major issues are, uh, the, uh, women access to sexual and reproductive health. As you know, when the, uh, when DEMEC starts, the health departments were overwhelmed with the responses and many of the access, for example, access to women health issues to contraceptions, to, uh, anything related to it. It was pushed to the back. And we found that this means that women are suffering a lot in their bodies, also from the effect of, of this lack of access. The second one is a, and I'm not seeing them in the, like, on the, which is most important. I mean, not in reality issues, but these are the four issues that were discussed.
Speaker 2 00:17:40 The second one was, uh, the, uh, economic resilience, meaning that, you know, that around the region, uh, we, we, we live a very, an equal region where a majority are moved and marginalized, but also there are very few who, who have high level of wealth. And the distribution is very problematic at the same time. Many people like the majority of populations in our region live day to day. And if you ask them to be isolated for two months, they're staying at home without access to income. This means that you are killing them. So basically what we heard in the region over and over again, if I don't die from the <inaudible>, I will die from hunger. So it's death either way for women. This is in particular, very important because most women, we, as you may know, we have one of the lowest economic participation of women in the world, in our region.
Speaker 2 00:18:44 Like we usually below 20% in all countries, and therefore many women are either in informal sector or unpaid care, unpaid family work. And these two sectors are usually, um, they don't have any access to social benefits. So even in some countries where it was possible to, um, to distribute some hands, some cash or some, uh, uh, social benefits, uh, women, even women who are heads of the households who are the only breadwinners, they couldn't access this kind of, uh, of supports. The third issue was violence against women. And we talked about that a little bit, but actually there were different forms of violence, including violence, online, uh, digital violence, uh, women were attacked for, uh, because they were staying home. Uh, they use social media, but the family members also noticed them more. They follow them more. They saw their movements. We heard the horrible stories about, uh, young women on TechTalk or on social media and how they were abused because, uh, the family sort of discovered what they are doing.
Speaker 2 00:20:00 There were different types of bullying. There was, of course, the domestic violence, the intimate violence, as well as violence against younger girls. The fourth one is anything related to a women, decent security and access to security in general. And this is especially valid and relevant to countries like war or countries were torn countries, uh, where, uh, while people had to be in isolation and look down because of the vendor make their homes were bombarded. That's why Oxfam supported the war can be, uh, do you and convene and a ceasefire immediate ceasefire for all conflicts, especially in Yemen, Syria, the girls are stripped, and of course women are most disadvantaged in any conflict area, but we also talk not only about open conflicts, we are talking about security issues due to, um, governments ablation, uh, due to, uh, how governments treat their citizens. In some cases, in some countries where there is more surveillance on women, not only on all citizens, but especially on women, activists.
Speaker 2 00:21:21 And maybe you heard about Egypt and what happened to the young women who were, um, in prison because of the practicing their self expression on online media or on digital platforms. So, um, these are the four issues. We are developing position papers and specific recommendations on how to address these four issues and what needs to be in place, uh, to, to protect women immediately, but also on the long run to prepare them, uh, for the, uh, what, what may come after the, um, COVID-19 could be done with those papers and how will you disseminate them? Uh, so for, uh, for Oxford papers, we did some work on unpaid care work women in informal sector, and they are available. I can share some of you, uh, for the, uh, uh, feminist groups in demeanor region, we are working on them, right. And they would, should be ready by the end of the month where we will disseminate them widely and try to reach out to decision makers at government level at the Arab league level, uh, at the UN level. So, um, there will be, uh, an advocacy plan attached to these papers.
Speaker 0 00:22:43 I am posing to give the next topic I discussed with dr. <inaudible> deserves attention violence against women, or what the UN has called shadow pandemic is a serious issue before, during, and it will remain after the pandemic. I will focus on this issue and other episodes, but here I asked dr. Hadeel about the factors contributing to exacerbation of this issue and their intervention to tackle them.
Speaker 2 00:23:08 They should do pandemic because also the statistics, the information we have so far, not only in our region, but globally shows that women who are suffering from the violence against women are even more than the women who suffer from dependency. And it is something that is happening everywhere it's happening because of many issues because of the bacteriological nature of societies, but also because of women's economic dependency, because of lack of services, because as you said, uh, uh, women issues were kept in the private sphere and they were not good into the public sphere. Um, uh, so I would say that, uh, there are different interventions, at least from Oxfam points of view. Uh, we have four areas of intervention that we work on and intersect with at any, at any point, um, why not? The first one is related to the individual. Uh, so the women awareness of what, what violence means and that what they are suffering of is violence and how they can report it, what they can do about it.
Speaker 2 00:24:23 Uh, there is the formal system, uh, which means that anything related to the laws, regulations, policies, uh, uh, court systems, uh, how to rework, how to, uh, seek services for, uh, then anything related to what we call the informal system, meaning anything related to the social norms, to, uh, the social media, to the jokes that we exchange, the songs that we listen to, to the sub Barbara's and series and TV shows that we, uh, listen to anything that reemphasize and recreates the violence against women in our day to day, actually. And the fourth area is what we call the organization, the systemic meaning how women can come together from the individual to the collective. And do you ask me if we work only with civil society organizations, and actually we encourage any group of women who come together even informally, there are social movements, there are working groups across the region, younger women, um, come to mind.
Speaker 2 00:25:35 There is a group in Palestine, for example, called Paula, a young, young feminist group who, who decided to, uh, go out to the streets and protest against violence against women. There is a group in Jordan. There is everywhere, actually in demeanor region, there are different groups of what we call social movements or informal groups who come together and protest against the violence against women. As you can see, these things are not separated from each other. They inform each other. They emphasize each other works, basically. Uh, what's uh, what the, uh, uh, individually well can inform the collective can inform the changes in social norms, what we call social norms, uh, and in, for a change. It's also informed the changes in policy and regulations in most of our countries in the region. Uh, our laws and regulations are outdated. They are very old, they are not, um, up to date.
Speaker 2 00:26:41 Uh, even the, the modernized laws are related mainly to market systems and investments, but not to social, uh, uh, laws and not things that relate that relates to family law, or because most of, in most of our countries, these are referred to the Sharia law laws and not modernized total. We have a project multi-country project that just started in the region focusing on violence against women in conflict. So looking at the complexity of violence in conflict areas, as well as, um, uh, uh, looking into services, referral assistance, uh, how, if, if a woman is a victim of violence, how she can access services, uh, within her community, uh, what are the availability of shelters? What are the availability of, uh, counseling, legal counseling, psychology counseling, all of these things are addressed at a multi layer, uh, way. And they, as I told you, they really inform each other and reinforce each other because we believe that no single entry to solving this shadow pandemic, we have advanced in addressing racism, addressing, addressing different kinds of discrimination, but we didn't progress enough to address patriarchy and to address the, uh, uh, abuse and subordination of women.
Speaker 2 00:28:15 When we reach that stage, I think many things will, will be different. Many things will, will shift around and we would live in a better societies and more viable and more sustainable societies where women are, and men have enjoy, enjoy life with dignity and social justice.
Speaker 0 00:28:37 Exactly. I, I strongly agree with you, unfortunately, the norms as they exist right now enable the aggressor on the basis of gender differences that could have had the, um, thank you so much. This has been a very informative, very interesting. It gives an idea about, um, the main issues that faced woman, um, uh, and in our region, um, regardless of if it's a comic or not at the pandemic, just brought to those issues to the surface, of course, the economic issues exist before and will exist after it just somehow
Speaker 2 00:29:15 Thanks for this opportunity. I think what we learned from the band dynamic was that the current situation of inequality and justice, lack of gender justice cannot continue. It is destroying us and it's, it will kill us all. So basically, uh, if dependent, uh, showed us something, it showed us the importance of social justice of women, being able to live a life full of dignity of how important it is to have social protection. We in Oxfam advocate for a minimum income, because this inequality cannot be addressed. If people are starving, if people don't have access to basic needs of sanitation or hygiene, or if people are not able to be safe in their homes. So all of this has to end. And I think in my opinion, uh, gender justice is the answer to many of the things that pandemic intent, intensified, uh, which are issues of inequality and justice and lack of security.
Speaker 0 00:30:30 That's it for me to say episode, remember, you can write to me on at <inaudible> dot com and if you have a story to tell, we can always send a voice note and I'm more than happy to connect with you and include you in the next episodes until then take care and stay safe.
Speaker 2 00:30:47 <inaudible>.
