Women's Rights and Human Rights in Muslim Countries: A Case Study

Working Out: ◽  
2003 ◽  
pp. 121-131
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Muslim Countries

Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shed Light

This volume reframes the debate around Islam and women’s rights within a broader comparative literature. It examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part I addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part II localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy, and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part I. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women’s rights vis-à-vis human rights to shed light on gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder over the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.

Democracy, Oil, or Religion? Expanding Women's Rights in the Muslim World

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 596-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neilan S. Chaturvedi ◽  
Orlando Montoya
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Oil Resources ◽  
The Government ◽  
Religion And State ◽  
Using Data

AbstractOf the 45 Muslim majority countries in the world, 42 have signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. While this does indeed signal a motive to improve women's rights, there is wide disparity in terms of which countries expand rights and which do not. Social science literature suggests that in addition to economic factors like wealth and oil resources, or political factors like the quality of democracy in the country, Islamic culture may be at odds with the Western conception of women's rights. We posit that Muslim countries are unique in this regard due to religious pressures that often conflict with conventional measures of human rights. Using data from the Cingranelli-Richards Human Rights Dataset and the Religion and State Project, we find that Muslim countries that restrict the influence of fundamentalist religion in the government and population improve women's economic and social rights.

Human Rights Universalism in Practice: What the Iranian Women’s Rights Movement Can Teach Us

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-479
Author(s):  
Nicole Nickerson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights Movement ◽  
International Human

Abstract Does practice demonstrate the legitimacy of international human rights law? This article explores this question via a case study of the women’s rights movement in Iran. Current human rights sceptics question the system’s legitimacy because of a lack of universality and an excessive top-down approach. However, the Islamic Republic of Iran has a remarkable community of grassroots activists. The bottom-up women’s rights initiative of the One Million Signatures Campaign utilised human rights discourse in combination with local, indigenous values in pursuit of gender equality. The article argues—via the case study of this movement—that there is practical evidence to support a theory of human rights universalism, as positive human rights law empowers the existing subjectivity of individuals. The universal legitimacy of international human rights law does not primarily come from a global network dictating common values, but from members of civil society mobilising their status as rights holders.

scholarly journals Taking Women's Rights Seriously: Using Human Rights to Require State Implementation of Domestic Abortion Laws in African Countries with Reference to Uganda

2015 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles G Ngwena
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
The State ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Positive Duty ◽  
Safe Abortion ◽  
European Court ◽  
Abortion Laws

AbstractThis article is constructed around the premise that women's rights to safe abortion give rise to obligations that the state has a positive duty to implement. Using Uganda as a case study, it frames failure by a state to implement its abortion laws in ways that render the rights tangible and accessible to women as a violation of human rights. The article develops a normative human rights framework for imposing on a state the obligation to take positive steps to implement abortion laws that the state, itself, has adopted. The framework does not depend on requiring the state first to reform its substantive laws or broaden the grounds for abortion. Rather, it focuses on the implementation of existing domestic laws. The article draws its remedial juridical responses partly from conceptions of women-centred rights to procedural justice, equality and health, and partly from jurisprudence developed in recent years by United Nations treaty-monitoring bodies and the European Court of Human Rights.

Constitutional Innovation and Animal Protection in Egypt

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (04) ◽  
pp. 1364-1390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen A. Stilt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Animal Protection

This article examines constitutional innovation through the case study of the emergence of animal protection in Egypt's 2014 Constitution. Egypt's provision, which is a state obligation to provide al-rifq bi-l-hayawan (kindness to animals), was adopted in Article 45 as part of the country's second constitution following the 2011 revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Three aspects proved crucial to the adoption of the provision: a decision by animal protection activists to influence the constitutional process; the ability of citizens to convey their ideas to the constitutional drafters, albeit in a limited way; and, most importantly, the use of frame bridging. The activists and then the constitutional drafters presented the new cause of constitutional animal protection in terms of well-established areas of social, and constitutional, concern in the country, including Islamic law, women's rights, human rights, and the protection of the environment.

scholarly journals Rights Inside Out: The Case of the Women's Human Rights Campaign

2002 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annelise Riles
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
Women’S Human Rights ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Women's Human Rights ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Inside Out

This essay traces the relationship between activists and academics involved in the campaign for “women's rights as human rights” as a case study of the relationship between different classes of what I call “knowledge professionals” self-consciously acting in a transnational domain. The puzzle that animates this essay is the following: how was it that at the very moment at which a critique of “rights” and a reimagination of rights as “rights talk” proved to be such fertile ground for academic scholarship did the same “rights” prove to be an equally fertile ground for activist networking and lobbying activities? The paper answers this question with respect to the work of self-reflexivity in creating a “virtual sociality of rights.”

State, Islam, and Gender Politics

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Socioeconomic Development ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Dress Code ◽  
Main Site ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Personal Rights ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Economy And Education

The existing literature on women’s rights and Islam falls short of addressing the relationship between the religious debate on women’s rights and the existing rules of law in Muslim-majority countries. This chapter will bridge this gap by analyzing the status of women in the legal systems of Egypt, Turkey, and Morocco. It will evaluate the influence of Islam on the shaping of these laws, compared to other factors like culture, socioeconomic development, and education. Except in marginal cases like Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban, women’s rights in politics, the economy, and education have advanced in all Muslim countries. But there are some limitations placed upon women’s rights using religious arguments. Everywhere, personal rights about family life, sexuality, and dress code remain discriminatory against women. In this regard, the woman’s body has become the main site of the politicization of Islam, by state and non-state actors alike.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document