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All opinion
All opinion
06 Sep 2022
Elimination of environmentally induced handicaps allows people with disabilities to engage in daily life
An Accessible Environment… is one of my rights!
An accessible environment is one that is disability-friendly, in which barriers to accessing infrastructure, facilities, and transportation are removed and eliminated. The inaccessible environment is a major challenge that hinders people with disabilit...
Author : دعاء الخضير، عبد المجيد دحبور، فاروق المقابلة، هديل جلهم، لمى سمارة
21 Jul 2022
Agricultural Informality: The women working outside the safety net of social protection
‘We said to the boss: “She needs treatment.” He replied, “How am I supposed to get the car over here?” She didn’t get the treatment she needed, so she died.’ Stories, like these, form just one part of the harsh reality of living as a female agricultural worker in the district of Tabqat Fahel in Jord...
Author : Safaa Al Momani, Chiao-Chun Chuang, Shahed Al Ghzawi, Maymuna Delki Anwaar Al Nethami, Khetam Qawaqzeh
17 Jul 2022
How Women are Overburdened by Jordan’s Public Transit System
The issue of public transport poses a unique challenge to Jordanian women, whose day-to-day activities - and the means by which they get to them - are difficult to anticipate. While men are, in general, able to enjoy the stability of a predictable schedule, for women the issue becomes a little more ...
Author : Areej Halabeya, Farah Al Mor, Naseeba Abu Rabeeha, Bayan Al Smadi, Refat Al Freihat and Mohammed Abu Addas
08 Mar 2021
COVID-19 and its Toll on Women in Jordan
COVID-19 was an unprecedented crisis that emerged in unexpected circumstances. This pandemic necessitated a change in priorities worldwide, with people compelled to come together in solidarity and unite all their efforts to support the health sector and save lives.
This pandemic goes beyond the def...
Author : Hayat Al-Shoubaki
23 Jan 2020
التعليم الأردني وعباءة الماضي
إن اللحظة التي طور فيها المهندس الأسكتلندي، جميس واط، المحرك البخاري في منتصف القرن الثامن عشر كانت كافية لتُغير حاضر البشرية ومستقبلها بطريقة غير مسبوقة في أي اختراعٍ مضى. حيث إن المتتبع للتاريخ يرى أن هذا الاختراع هو أساس بداية ثورات التنمية والتطور التي ما هي إلا استمرار طبيعي للتطور الذي بدأه ا...
Author : Khalil Haddadin
30 Dec 2019
Non-Jordanian Children of Jordanian Mothers
*This article was edited by the Researcher, Kareem Al-Sharabi.
More than 355,000 non-Jordanian nationals born to Jordanian women - known as ‘abnaa al urduniyyat’ - live in Jordan. While stopping short of granting them nationality, the Jordanian government has since 2014 started issuing “privileges” ...
Author : Lina AlHaj Ahmad
16 Jul 2018
Youth in Jordan: From Limited Participation to National Youth-led Movements
One fifth of Jordan’s population is between 15 and 24 years old according to the Department of Statistics. They are the next generation of leaders, entrepreneurs, and influencers, which makes their political participation increasingly important. Yet are Jordanian youth sufficiently engaged? And are ...
Author : Youssef Qahwaji
15 Oct 2017
Development Priorities in Jordan: Who Decides on What?
Despite its middle income status, Jordan benefits from large amounts of development and humanitarian programming. This is largely due to its hosting of unprecedented numbers of refugees as well as its strategic positioning in the region’s current conflict dynamic. These funds usually come from inter...
Author : Youssef Qahwaji
14 Aug 2017
Education: The Forgotten Child of Humanitarian Response
Globally, more than 75 million children are out of school due to conflict and natural disasters, approximately the same number of children who are in school across the 28 countries of the European Union. This has devastating consequences. With displacement crises lasting on average 20 years, entire ...
Author : Juliet Dryden
07 May 2017
Enhancing Youth Enrolment in Education: What can Civil Society in Jordan Learn from the Private Sector?
Jordan should accommodate its rapidly growing population by prioritising the enrolment of youth in higher education. To facilitate this, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) should adapt to how society, as well as the stakeholders and beneficiaries of civil society programmes, are changing. One questi...
Author : Jamshid Masori
21 Nov 2016
Informal Justice is Real Justice
I’m a member of that generation of scholar-practitioners who were present when customary justice programming was dismissed as not ‘real’ justice work. I can vividly recall a former boss telling me that “at [organisation to remain unnamed], the only justice system is the formal one, and playing in th...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
16 Nov 2016
Op-ed: What Does Trump Mean for the WANA Region?
If social media is anything to go by, then a healthy majority of the region’s citizenry is dismayed by the election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States of America. No Arab could have missed the rhetoric Trump spent his election campaign claiming to stand for. We have heard his...
10 Nov 2016
Legal Empowerment through Cultural Understanding
Afro-American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said that “perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends”.
In the first half of...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
08 Mar 2016
Feminist Discourses in the WANA Region: Strategies for Success
Scholarship on the discourse of women's rights has significantly developed in the past decades, with a specific focus on how religion influences women's legal and social roles. It has been argued that “the two major challenges to all human rights and especially those of women in the twenty first cen...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
21 Feb 2016
Democracy's Greyzones
There are many things that might surprise you when you’re living abroad. It could be the local cuisine, perceptions about tidiness, or the efficiency of the bureaucracy. Personally, what I always find most inspiring is a country’s people, and the deep and puzzling contrasts that are contained withi...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
25 Nov 2015
November 25th: International day for the elimination of violence against women
According to the Global Gender Gap Index 2015, released last week by the World Economic Forum, progress on closing the divide between the opportunities afforded to men and women has stalled. Gender-based discrimination remains a global phenomenon, but West Asia and North Africa (WANA) is the region ...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
02 Nov 2015
Reflections on a summer spent in Amman: WANA's social justice intern looks back at her time spent with the Institute
As I pack my bags to return to University in England, I have been invited to write a short opinion article reflecting on my internship with the West Asia-North Africa Institute. I arrived from Rabat, Morocco not knowing what to expect of my time in Amman or what my experience at the Institute would ...
Author : Noor Jehan Guyer
07 May 2015
Women and Islam Part 2: custom, religion and civil society
My article of last week discussed the challenges faced by the women of West Asia-North Africa upholding their rights and protecting themselves from violence. I explained that deficiencies in the legal protection framework, legal illiteracy and poor access to the justice system leave women vulnerable...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
30 Apr 2015
In a word: Women and the Law in Jordan
Cultural practices and weaknesses in the legal protection framework can (at times) work against women, whose rights are often curbed and abused (in Jordan).
In our upcoming research paper, ‘Women and the Law in Jordan: Islam as a Path to Reform’, we argue that Islam itself is women’s best ally for ...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
30 Apr 2015
Video: Women and the Law in Jordan
Cultural practices and weaknesses in the legal protection framework can (at times) work against women, whose rights are often curbed and abused (in Jordan).
In our upcoming research paper, ‘Women and the Law in Jordan: Islam as a Path to Reform’, we argue that Islam itself is women’s best ally for ...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
28 Apr 2015
Women and Islam Part 1: new strategies to strengthen protection
The women of West Asia-North Africa face complex and multifaceted challenges upholding their rights and protecting themselves from violence. In many jurisdictions, legislation does not afford equal opportunity and protection to women; certain laws are discriminatory and others, while not explicitly ...
Author : Annalisa Bezzi
08 Mar 2015
Making it happen this International Women's Day
This year, to recognise International Women’s Day, we are being urged to "make it happen". Julia O’Brien met with renowned women’s rights activist and lawyer, Hauwa Ibrahim, to get her perspective on what she hopes to make happen through her work at the WANA Institute.
Hauwa and I have been on the l...
Author : Julia O'Brien
20 Jan 2015
Capturing the hearts and minds of the next generation of Jerusalemites
The deprivation of basic human rights of the citizens of Jerusalem is leading young people to take action – very young people, and their action is not always non-violent. Guest writer, Walid Salem, considers what is causing the younger generation of Palestinian Jerusalemite’s to take such action, an...
Author : Walid Salem
03 Jan 2015
Part 2: Making sure justice is measurable and something to care about
Published as part of a three-part series on the Post-2015 development agenda.
I’m back, and again it’s the post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda on my mind. Now that you’re all thinking about what this agenda means for the future of the West Asia-North Africa region, it’s time to hone in on speci...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
02 Dec 2014
Part 1: Everything you need to know about the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Part one of our three part series on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
As the race to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) enters its final stretch, concerned citizens wait to see whether the findings of the Open Working Group will translate into a set of Sustainable Development Goals that c...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
20 Nov 2014
Shock and recovery: Jerusalem, sanctuary for all
This article was first published in the Huffington Post on 14 November, 2014.
What is to be done about Jerusalem? Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this region is witnessing new walls being constructed in vain attempts to contain problems between people. When will we realize that ...
Author : HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal
10 Nov 2014
Why the rule of law is important for the WANA region
Whether you subscribe to the human rights or development theories, it is generally accepted that the rule of law is key to poverty reduction, economic growth and human security. But is what we’re doing aligned with the aim we wish to achieve?
For the better part of the last three decades, the approa...
Author : Dr Erica Harper
02 Nov 2014
Women’s access to justice must be prioritised in the WANA region
The justice systems of many West Asia and North African countries do not afford equal opportunity andprotection to large segments of the femalepopulation. Such exclusion from the justice system has proven negative implications for economic growth, livelihoods, social equity and stability. So why is ...
Author : Dr Erica Harper