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This chapter explores the impact that legal reform has had on Moroccan divorce practice. The Mudawwanat al-Usra (Family Law Compilation) of 2004 included a new provision under which courts should grant a judicial divorce to either spouse on the grounds of marital discord (shiqāq). Since the evidential requirements for establishing the grounds of shiqāq are easily met, the numbers of judicial divorces increased exponentially during 2004-7. …

Women’s rights activists often cite the repetition of military dictatorships in Pakistan as being responsible for arrested democratic development, worsening gender discrimination and increased theocratisation of state and society. This chapter argues that in fact, whether the nature of dictatorship was repressive and misogynistic (as under General Zia ul Haq, 1977-88) or purportedly liberal and ‘enlightened’ (General Musharraf, 1999-2008), women’s activism has been arguably the most energised and even incomparably influential, during such regimes. This is especially so in terms of mobilised political expression. In comparison, democratic interregnums have tended to mute women political actors, both in government and in civil society or sometimes through self-censorship. …

“Mudança do Garcia” is one of the most popular Carnival events in Salvador, as a traditional arena for political protest. Thousands of people from Garcia neighbourhood converge on the city centre. The tradition takes place on Carnival Monday, and started in the mid-1930s when middle-class families began to move to Garcia and sought police support to close a famous brothel that operated there at the time. On the day of their eviction, the women brothel workers left Garcia in horse-drawn chariots, dressed in fancy costumes, and followed by a band and a parade of protesting customers. …

This article, translated into Portuguese by Cecilia Sardenberg, adopts an upside-down approach to women's political empowerment. While the number of women we need to get into legislatures has often assumed centrestage, this paper takes women's pathways as its starting point. In so doing, it challenges the narrow conception of women's political engagement as occupying formal positions and seeks to present a more nuanced perspective on the spaces, relationships and ways of working that influence power hierarchies and dynamics.  …

Xiaopei He describes her activities in China working with the lesbian and gay (tongzhi) movement as activists challenge the conventions and traditions of heteronormativity in innovative and fun ways. …

The author draws on her own experience as a feminist bureaucrat involved in the 1995 Women’s Conference to make the case for multiple feminist narratives of Beijing that woven together can create a myth that points to the importance of collective organising that cuts across state-civil society boundaries. …

Report in Bangla on the research which documented and analysed strategies and approaches used by three national women's organisations in Bangladesh to mobilize and advocate for women's rights and raise demands to the state and other rights holders. The study challenges the established view that feminist voice, organisation and movement loses ground after democratic transitions. …

This report focuses on a project which looks at resurgent Islam and its influence on the formation of female identities and sexualities. The researchers explore the ways in which women in their daily lives engage with religious tenets and observance, focusing on new forms of religious organization and the appeal it has for women of various classes. …

This report in Bangla focuses on research which compared and contrasted conceptualizations of women's empowerment used by different actors: women's organisations, development agencies, political parties and NGOs in Bangladesh. …

This report in Bangla focuses on research which considers whether and how the work done by Women Health Workers leads to changes at the individual, family and societal levels. The researchers explored how Women Health Workers are introducing new role models for women, challenging purdah, encouraging mobility, and creating pathways of empowerment. …

Mulki Al-Sharmani critically examines the institutional narrative of marriage constructed and sustained by substantive family laws, juxtaposed against the lived experience of marriage for many women in Egypt. Based on the doctrines of classical schools of Islamic jurisprudence, Egypt’s family laws uphold a contractual model of marriage in which a husband acquires the right to a wife’s physical and sexual availability in the conjugal home in return for the obligation to provide for her and their children. …

Sohela Nazneen, Maheen Sultan and Naomi Hossain explore concepts of empowerment being used by some women’s organisations, development NGOs, mass political parties and aid donors in Bangladesh. Focusing primarily on public discourses, they review publicly available documentation of women’s organisations, development NGOs, mass political parties and aid donors. They discuss the implications of using empowerment by these different actors and conclude with reflections on new forms of public action and coalitions of interest to advance women’s power in Bangladesh. …

This paper explores how perceptions and narratives around women’s empowerment have evolved in Bangladesh from 2000 to date. It studies the concepts of women’s empowerment in public discourse and reviews the meanings and uses of the term by selected women’s organisations, donor agencies, political parties and development NGOs. By reviewing the publicly available documents of these organisations, the paper analyses the multiple discourses on women’s empowerment, showing the different concepts associated with it and how notions such as power, domains and processes of empowerment are understood by these actors. It also highlights how these different discourses have influenced each other and where they have diverged, with an emphasis on what these divergences mean in terms of advancing women’s interests in Bangladesh. …

In this article, Al-Sharmani highlights the international measures that are in place to combat violence against refugee and displaced women, and then summarizes in detail the UNHCR policies that address this violence. It is argued that, while the existence of these policies and measures is important, they need to do more to address the structural forms of violence against refugee and displaced women. Al-Sharmani notes that currently, structural causes are not adequately dealt with. The article raises the question of how to translate refugee and displaced women’s different experiences of violence into meaningful language and adequate policy measures that meet the needs of all women and protect their human rights. …

The Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Programme Consortium (RPC) and the Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (WEMC) RPC held a public discussion on the theme of building alliances on 13 November 2008 in Cape Town prior to the AWID Forum. The day’s programme included an introduction to the two RPCs by their respective directors, followed by inputs from the RPC members about women’s movements’ encounters with other social movements, after which there was a question and answer session. An internal meeting was held by the two RPCs for members to identify key issues of strategic relevance for building alliances as well as overcoming oppositions, and to formulate strategies for engagement across movements. …