Gender-Based Violence in the Middle East and North Africa: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon

The article charts my trajectories as a feminist activist/academic seeking to research, write and talk about gender-based violence in relation to the Middle East. More specifically, I am drawing on research and activism in relation to Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon to map the discursive, political and empirical challenges and complexities linked to scholarship and activism that is grounded in both feminist and anti-racist/anti-Islamophobic politics. While reflecting on my positionality, the article aims to challenge the binary of activism and academia as well as Western and Middle Eastern contexts in terms of knowledge production.

Download Full-text

Femicide and the Speaking State

Journal of Middle East Women s Studies ◽

10.1215/15525864-8637409 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. 283-306

Author(s):

Sumru Atuk

Keyword(s):

Discourse Analysis ◽

Middle East ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Speech Acts ◽

Political Rhetoric ◽

Social Consequences ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Complex Relationship ◽

Gender Based Violence ◽

Gender Based

Abstract High rates of gender-based violence and sexist political rhetoric are central features of contemporary Turkey. This article explores the complex relationship between the two by drawing on the literature that investigates the (re)making of the category of “woman” in the Middle East and the scholarship on femicide/feminicide. The article employs critical discourse analysis of ruling politicians’ gender-normative statements and shows how they reconstruct the category of “proper woman” as one with institutional and social consequences that compromise women’s safety. Using John L. Austin’s theory of performative speech acts, the article develops a theory of the speaking state to explain the effects of political speech. Ultimately it argues that the politics of “woman making” is central to “the politics of woman killing.”

Download Full-text

Criminal Accountability for Gender-Based Violence in North Africa: Beyond Legal Reforms

10.1007/978-3-030-75949-0_8 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 225-267

Author(s):

Yousra Abourabi ◽

Emma Charlene Lubaale

Keyword(s):

North Africa ◽

Gender Based Violence ◽

Legal Reforms ◽

Gender Based

Download Full-text

Gender-Based Violence in the Middle-East: A Review

Key Issues in Mental Health - Violence against Women and Mental Health ◽

10.1159/000342011 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 12-23

Author(s):

Josyan Madi Skaff

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

Gender Based Violence ◽

Gender Based

Download Full-text

Domestic Violence in the African North

Al-Raida Journal ◽

10.32380/alrj.v0i0.37 ◽

1970 ◽

pp. 17-27

Author(s):

Fatima Sadiqi

Keyword(s):

Domestic Violence ◽

United Nations ◽

North Africa ◽

Legal Reform ◽

Theoretical Work ◽

Gender Based Violence ◽

Policy Makers ◽

The Past ◽

United Nations Convention ◽

Gender Based

Theories, debates, and activism on sexual health and rights have travelled withreasonable speed in North Africa in the past three decades or so and considerable headway has been achieved on this front (see Charrad, 2010; Sadiqi, 2008; Ennaji & Sadiqi, 2011). However, although related, questions of domestic violence, which may also include sexual assault and rape, have been rather side-lined theoretically, in spite of the fact that activism and legal reform remain strong in the region, and in spite of the fact that gender-based violence is considered essential to the most fundamental provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This regression in theoretical work on domestic violence in the region resulted in lack of action on the part of policy-makers.

Download Full-text