Changing Our World: WLP Partner Initiatives for Women’s Rights in Jordan and Nigeria

In this issue we feature the groundbreaking and creative advocacy initiatives conceived by and carried out by our partner organizations in Jordan and Nigeria to see what women on the ground are doing to change the world.

Information Sharing Initiatives Launched in Jordan

Asma Khader is Secretary General of the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) and General Coordinator of WLP partner Sisterhood Is Global Institute/Jordan (SIGI/J). She is a lawyer and leading women’s rights activist in the Middle East. WLP Program Associate, Layali Eshqaidef, spoke with Ms. Khader about her recent initiatives, including a new radio station for women and youth in Jordan and a women’s legal literacy campaign.

WLP: Please tell us about the new radio station for women and youth that you helped initiate in Jordan. How is this radio station different from others?

Khader: Radio “Farah An-Nas” (“Joy of People”) is a grassroots project started by young community leaders invested in change. The station officially started broadcasting in July from its location at the Princess Basma Youth Resource Center, which is located in a lower-income area of Amman. The station is run by 17 full-time Jordanian youth as young as 10 years old. The project is the result of a successful collaboration between seven different organizations as well as funders, experts, and trainers.

Among its diverse daily programs is a morning show called “Women Today” and a family show called “Let’s Talk.” There are also two to three hours of afternoon programs for youth and children daily. News briefs run every half hour and include an in depth report that focuses on a different topic each time discussing politics, culture, sports, civil society, tourism, the environment, and other important issues for young people today. Some of the radio station’s unique characteristics include its openness and freedom of expression and its emphasis on transparency and ethics. Other attractive features of the station are the young age of staff, reporters, and audience as well as the types of messages sent which center around women’s rights and gender equality.

WLP: You also helped launch the women’s legal literacy campaign in July. How did this project come about and what does it hope to accomplish?

Khader: This campaign is the first national-level effort to raise women's awareness of their legal rights in the constitution and international conventions. It started with a survey through the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) in collaboration with the Women's Studies Center of the University of Jordan to assess the legal questions of greatest interest to women. Among the questions are ones on personal status laws, labor codes, and retirement benefits. We then shortlisted the 100 frequently asked legal questions and we are compiling answers for them as part of a project called "Waraqati" ("My Paper"). The next step is to widely distribute the paper through our radio station, website, CDs, the media, and women's organizations in order to reach as many women as possible.

This project has evolved over time from local level workshops for legal literacy into this national campaign. Legal literacy workshops started in the 1980s at programs of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), and the first legal counseling centers in Jordan were established back then through the Women Business Owners’ Club. The Jordanian Women’s Union has also been active in reaching out to women all over Jordan to raise awareness about legal and human rights through workshops and individual counseling. Recently, SIGI/J launched the Aman Online Information and Resource Center on Violence against Women which is linked to its website. This and the Effat El-Hindy Online Counseling Center have become major information and resource centers on legal and social issues in Jordan and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights Lives Up to its Name in Nigeria

BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights, WLP’s partner in Nigeria, is teaming up with like-minded human rights organizations in Nigeria to ensure that their government is fulfilling its legal obligation as signatory of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to promote gender equality.

BAOBAB has recently coordinated a coalition of women’s rights NGOs tasked with reporting on Nigeria’s implementation of gender equitable measures in its laws and their enforcement. This summer the coalition submitted a shadow report to the CEDAW Committee during the 41st CEDAW Committee sessions at the UN headquarters in New York. The shadow report addresses discrepancies in Nigeria’s commitment to gender equality under CEDAW’s mandate since ratifying the Convention in 1985 without reservations.

The shadow report highlights the issues that plague women in Nigeria and points to a direct correlation between the lack of adequate implementation of CEDAW and issues such as, Nigeria’s high maternal mortality rate, acts of violence committed against women without legal ramifications and protection, discrimination in the labor force, and barriers to women’s political participation.

In response to these challenges, the CEDAW Committee is requesting that Nigeria domesticate the Convention immediately and strongly suggests that the Nigerian government amend all laws that impede the goal of women’s equality.

In an issue that further highlights gender discrimination in Nigerian law, BAOBAB is advocating against recently proposed legislation that seeks to define a dress code for women, thereby limiting women’s choice and freedom. BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights publicly condemned the bill by issuing a press release and articulating its disagreement with the proposed legislation in various television appearances. BAOBAB staff organized over 300 women to speak out against the discriminatory bill at a recent town hall meeting where the organization’s members presented a memo outlining why the bill should not pass in its third and final hearing in the Senate. Further advocacy efforts, in cooperation with concerned groups, are planned to ensure that the bill is not passed into law.