Women in the Arab Region are heard

Podcasts on violence against women on openDemocracy

The struggle of women against violence in the family is becoming more visible thanks to coverage by openDemocracy. With funds of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme, this global current affairs platform has produced radio documentaries about the Arab women's movement 'Karama'.

openDemocracy works from the conviction that debate is key to changing minds, which in turn leads to changes in policy and ultimately in practice. The Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme considers it important to provide the women of Karama with the space to share their knowledge.

Podcasts
openDemocracy started the project to attract attention internationally, to enable women to speak in their own language, to train and encourage them in the use of internet and to market their knowledge and experiences. Editor Jane Gabriel produced seven podcasts - radio documentaries - and related articles. They cover, for instance, the change of the Family Code in Morocco which made violence against women a topic but failed to reduce it. They describe the work of women's activists in Syria where organisations working for women's rights are banned. They deal with the fight against honour killings and other forms of 'private justice' in Lebanon.

Impact
The podcasts have reached several thousand listeners globally. Considering the growth of openDemocracy's readership, this number is expected to grow. Attention has been particularly high from within the Western feminist and human rights movements. Jane Gabriel:"I was greatly suprised by how little people in the West - including the Western feminist movement - know about the debates and the work for change that is going on in Muslim culture. Equally, I was struck by the seeming isolation within which the Arab women's organisations work. Communication, making the effort to sit down and talk, is all it takes." UNIFEM, the New Arab Women's Forum, AWID, Unicef, Musawah - all expressed interest in promoting this sharing of knowledge on a platform like openDemocracy.

Karama
Nice for openDemocracy, but has it delivered anything for the women in the Arab region? Karama: "Our partners are proud of the visibility gained by openDemocracy's coverage of our activities. It has added weight to our advocacy efforts, for instance in Lebanon where the women's movement succeeded in convincing political parties to support the Family Violence Bill. It also helps us raise more funds in the West."

Experiment
Support for this project is part of a range of experiments within the knowledge programme. The Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme aims to develop strategies on how to counter fundamentalisms of all sorts, how to promote tolerance and social cohesion. According to Ute Seela, co-chairperson of the programme, "openDemocracy is an interesting platform to follow in that respect. It is open and pluralist, it offers people a vehicle to raise their own voice. But it also provides quality by applying a strong editorial policy."

Want to know more about this project? The podcasts and articles can be accessed here. All openDemocracy material is published under the Creative Commons licence and free to use.