Resource center

Project webpage:
The Permanent Arab Court To Resist Violence Against Women is a symbolic popular court that aims at fighting all forms of violence practiced against women in Arab societies.
The Court was established by a group of Arab NGOs and distinguished personalities gathered in Rabat , Morocco on 30th November and 1st December 1996. The main purpose of the Court is to put an end to the intensifying and multifaceted violence against women. This need has become obviously clear by a public hearing on violence against women that was held in Beirut in June 1995, and was the first of its kind in the Arab world.

Organisation website:
The mission of Persian/ate Gender Network (PGN) is to establish a link and be a focal point among the multitude of organizations and individuals which work on gender issues in Persian-speaking countries(practitioners, researchers, academicians, civil society, policy makers, and advocates), so that they can capitalize on their collective knowledge and synergize each other's work and efforts.
The initial focus of PGN's work program is around women's economic empowerment through employment, self-employment and entrepreneurship. It serves women in Persian speaking countries of Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
PGN is initiated and funded by the World Bank and operated by the Tunisia-based Center for Arab Women's Training and Research (CAWTAR).

Organisation website :
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) is a network of feminist scholars, researchers and activists from the economic South working for economic and gender justice and sustainable and democratic development. DAWN provides a forum for feminist research, analyses and advocacy on global issues (economic, social and political) affecting the livelihoods, living standards, rights and development prospects of women, especially poor and marginalized women, in regions of the South. Through research, analyses, advocacy and, more recently, training, DAWN seeks to support women's mobilization within civil society to challenge inequitable social, economic and political relations at global, regional and national levels, and to advance feminist alternatives.

Organisation website: Commission profile available in 2 languages. ( English and Arabic ). In brief: "The National Commission for Lebanese Women (NCLW) is the official national mechanism responsible for realizing women's advancement and gender equality in Lebanon."

Organisation website:
Equal Rights Advocates is a nonprofit legal organization dedicated to protecting and expanding economic and educational access and opportunities for women and girls.

Equal Opportunity
ERA works to eradicate illegal discriminatory practices that deny women advancement opportunities, equal compensation, and access to certain occupations.

Respectful and Safe Treatment
ERA demands that employers provide women with a work environment that is free of sexual harassment and in compliance with health and safety laws.

Work and Family Balance
ERA enforces family and medical leave and pregnancy protection laws, and is active in the effort to establish paid family and medical leave.

Project webpage:
In 1996, Lebanon ratified, with reservations, an international covenant regarding women's rights known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. This Convention sets out, in a comprehensive, legally binding form, internationally accepted principles on the rights of women. It further commits States Parties to take all appropriate measures, to ensure the full development and advancement of women and to guarantee them the enjoyment of the fundamental rights and freedoms to which they are entitled, on a basis of equality with men. Moreover, the Convention requires that Governments work to eliminate discrimination against women in public life as well as in private life. Indeed, according to the Convention, women must be as free as men to make choices not only in political and legal sphere, but also in such areas as marriage, the home and family life in general.

To implement women's rights, as stated in the Convention, the establishment of official and non-governmental monitoring mechanisms (national and international) helps ensure that goals are being reached and that legal rights and duties of women are recognized, understood and enforced.

The Lebanese government submitted, in 1999, its initial report regarding the progress made on the implementation of the Convention in its country, to the international monitoring treaty body known as the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against women (CEDAW Committee). Non-governmental organizations are also encouraged to submit a parallel report in conformity with the guidelines set by the CEDAW Committee.

In this respect, the Lebanese NGO Forum, an umbrella organization of various NGOs distributed geographically throughout the Lebanese territory has set a permanent monitoring mechanism entitled Women's Rights Monitor.

This project aims at helping NGOs monitor women's rights and implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in Lebanon by establishing a platform for co-ordination that will, at the national and regional levels:

- Provide information about the Convention and the CEDAW Committee

- Provide guidelines in view of helping NGOs to write their report to the CEDAW Committee

- Establish a set of baseline data regarding women's rights in Lebanon in accordance with the guidelines of the CEDAW

- Elaborate a permanent report regarding women's situation in Lebanon, based on the compiled data

- Establish a bibliography on the subject of women's rights and facilitate the exchange of information and documentation

- Provide a mailing list of participating NGOs

Organisation Website : portal available in 3 languages French, English and Arabic. In brief: "Al Tamkeen is a Lebanese Non Profit Non Governmental Organization (NGO) officially registered in 2002 under notification no. 159/AD. Al Tamkeen aims at improving the social, cultural, and economical and health livelihood of rural Lebanese citizens through providing various types of assistance programs and development projects."