Addressing Violence Against Women Through Legislative Reform in States Transitioning from the Arab Spring

Abstract

The adoption of gender-sensitive legislation during times of social and political transition not only increases the protection of women, but also promotes and institutionalizes gender justice. There have been calls for gendering transitional justice mechanisms in the post-Arab Spring in order to address previous regimes’ violations of women’s rights and society’s overall tolerance for gender-based violence. This chapter will present a desk review of gender sensitive and violence against women legal reform resulting from transitional processes of states emerging from the Arab Spring, examining actions taken in Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen. While violence against women legal reform has been uneven, the case studies reveal that, women’s organizations and movements (particularly feminist or feminist-oriented) are key to ensuring that violence against women legal reform is a component of any transitional process; however, their intervention alone does not ensure serious consideration of violence or legal transformation. While this finding is in line with other research concerning autonomous women’s movements and the governmental response to violence against women, the case studies also reveal that more holistic interventions are needed for violence against women to be sufficiently addressed in transitioning societies; this includes dedicated political will, a more thorough transitional justice process, and strong commitment to international frameworks.