This toolkit is about how youth can advocate strategically for gender equality and empowerment of young women. It highlights ways in which youth can influence decision-making at community, local and national levels to achieve gender equality. An important running thread through the toolkit is on engaging young men as gender equality advocates. This toolkit is for individual young women and young men, youth-led groups, networks and movements, including youth-focused organizations and other...

This guidance note draws data and recommendations from IMAGES MENA on the topic of raising children more gender equitably. It provides actionable steps and guidance on how civil society partners and UN actors can design and adapt programming and influence a policy environment that promotes equality at work and at home This note was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development...

This guidance note draws data and recommendations from IMAGES MENA on the topic of raising children more gender equitably. It provides actionable steps and guidance on how civil society partners and UN actors can design and adapt programming and influence a policy environment that promotes equality at work and at home This note was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development...

This guidance note draws data and recommendations from IMAGES MENA on the topic of promoting men's caregiving to advance gender equality. It provides actionable steps and guidance on how civil society partners and UN actors can design and adapt programming and influence a policy environment that promotes equality at work and at home This note was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International...

This guidance note draws data and recommendations from IMAGES MENA on the topic of engaging young men in advancing gender equality. It provides actionable steps and guidance on how civil society partners and UN actors can design and adapt programming and influence a policy environment that promotes equality at work and at home This note was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development...

This guidance note draws data and recommendations from IMAGES MENA on the topic of engaging men in gender- transformative approaches to end violence against women. It provides actionable steps and guidance on how civil society partners and UN actors can design and adapt programming and influence a policy environment that promotes equality at work and at home This note was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the...

Authors/editor(s): Musawah - a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family Musawah believes that a transformation of family relationships is necessary and possible from within Muslim tradition. We can shift our understanding of spousal and family relationships from one based on a hierarchical understanding of qiwamah – understood as men’s authority over women – to one based on equal partnerships within families, where both spouses share responsibilities and...

Islam and the Question of Gender Equality is part of a series of knowledge briefs for women’s rights activists to provide advocacy arguments and convey key ideas and concepts related to Muslim legal traditions in a simple and appealing way.

Compilation of Resources Over the past two decades, research and resources on women’s rights and Islam have proliferated from a variety of sources: academic circles, civil society organizations, governmental policy documents, intergovernmental agencies, etc. Yet the richness of the current stage of knowledge often remains unknown or inaccessible to those who seek to engage with advocacy and reform on topics related to these matters but are not familiar with Islamic studies and/or human rights standards. This document provides a pool of resources – including articles, book chapters, reports, videos, and international declarations and conventions – that are self-contained, accessible to non-specialists, and can be used in work related to women’s rights within Muslim family laws.

Women’s Stories, Women’s Lives: Male Authority in Muslim Contexts outlines the findings and selected stories from Musawah’s Global Life Stories Project, through which researchers and activists documented the life stories of 55 women in nine countries. The Global Life Stories Project is a central element in Musawah’s ongoingand multifaceted research programmes aimed at producing new egalitarianknowledge from within Muslim legal tradition. The book was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality’ Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded the research component.

This advocacy document builds on the Musawah Framework for Action (2009) and Wanted: Equality and Justice in the Muslim Family (2009) report. It is based on academic and participatory research and was prepared in consultation with scholars, activists, lawyers, and women whose lives are affected by discriminatory family laws and practices. Ideas raised in this document are explored in more detail in the Musawah book Men in Charge? Rethinking Authority in Muslim Legal Tradition (Oneworld 2015) and Women’s Stories, Women’s Lives: Male Authority in Muslim Contexts (2016), the final report from Musawah’s Global Life Stories Project.This knowledge brief was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

Search for Common Ground (SFCG) launched a one-year initiative, “Inclusive Dialogue within Women Rights Movements in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region,” in collaboration with UN Women in year 2016 aiming to identify the key divisions among women’s organizations, improve trust among groups, and develop strategies for collaboration. A policy report capturing the process, lessons learned and recommendations was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

This toolbox is a selected set of 55 tools to support youth groups and emerging community-based organisations (CBOs) in building their capacities in six areas; gender-focused capacity (11 tools), leadership capacity (10 tools), management capacity (7 tools), action capacity (12 tools), innovation capacity (8 tools) and adaptive capacity (7 tools. It aims to support youth groups and emerging CBOs by proposing useful practical tools that can foster their capacities-organizational capacity to engage actively with gender equality and women’s empowerment issues. This knowledge brief was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

Muslim Family Laws. What Makes Reform Possible is part of a series of knowledge briefs for women’s rights activists to provide advocacy arguments and convey key ideas and concepts related to Muslim legal traditions in a simple and appealing way. Reform is often resisted on the grounds that Muslim family laws are divine and thus not open to change. Yet in reality change and reform have been inherent in Muslim legal tradition. Islamic legal theory is rich with concepts and tools that have been continually used in the past and that can pave the way for family laws that are more in line with contemporary Muslim realities, as well as with modern notions of justice which, in the course of the twentieth century, have come to include gender equality.This knowledge brief was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

Shari‘ah, fiqh and Islamic law is part of a series of knowledge briefs for women’s rights activists to provide advocacy arguments and convey key ideas and concepts related to Muslim legal traditions in a simple and appealing way. The boundaries between some key terms such as Shari‘ah, fiqh and Islamic law are often blurred and confused in everyday language. This confusion contributes to gender inequality in modern family laws in ways that are detrimental to women. Attempts to reform state laws in the direction of justice and equality for women have been opposed by those who perceive them as going against Shari‘ah. It is essential to distinguish between these terms in order to set the divine and eternal apart from the human and temporal.This knowledge brief was produced under the UN Women Men and Women for Gender Equality Programme, Arab States Regional Office, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).