The detention on remand of two trainers from Sweden and Germany hired by Hivos and eight human rights defenders, including Amnesty International’s director in Turkey, has been extended by seven days. The Istanbul Ten’, as they are now referred to in the media, are being held in a police prison in Istanbul, in five-person cells. […]
I made my way through the small alley that leads to their new office and workshop in Beirut. Clean white marble tiles, sparkling white walls and the smell of paint everywhere showed the place was clearly still under construction. When it’s up and running next month, it will be the third physical space of Atelier […]
Human rights should be considered proportionally in any governmental policy related to the Internet in a way that will hopefully spur the private sector to follow. The Internet has become an essential platform for the exercise of free speech, especially in oppressive environments where freedom of expression, freedom of association, and/or freedom of assembly are […]
Man to woman the evening of March 8: “Your day is over, time to go back to the kitchen”. *laughter* It’s easy to assume that this type of sexist humour just comes out of typical male cafés in Lebanon. But this joke was used by seasoned Lebanese television host Marcel Ghanem in a tweet to […]
Today, March 15 2017, marks the sixth year of the conflict in Syria. This conflict has resulted in the largest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time. The numbers are massive: almost 50% of the entire Syrian population are uprooted from their homes; five million have fled the country since 2011 and over six million […]
Overcoming poor representation and gender stereotypes Hivos WE4L Lebanon Partner Maharat Foundation’s report following its gendered-based election media monitoring in the May 2016 Lebanese municipal elections shows how women political opinion-makers and leaders continue to be weakly represented in the Lebanese audio-visual media. During the launch of the report on 20 October 2016, a discussion […]
On 26 January 2017, Lebanese LGBT activists celebrated a significant victory. For the fourth time in the past eight years, a Lebanese judge ruled that homosexuality was not illegal, applying a liberal interpretation of the Lebanese penal code. The abolition of the legal article in question, no. 534, which criminalizes sexual acts contradictory to the […]
Co-authored with Ferdinand Francken, LEAD programme Coordinator, Ministry of Foreign Affairs The economic perspectives of young people in many developing countries are extremely poor, and unemployment rates staggering high. Even when jobs are available, there is often a mismatch between the skills young people can offer and those required by employers. In some of these countries, […]
“There is no abstract mass of Lebanese citizens; there are Lebanese male citizens and Lebanese female citizens.” – May Mikdashi, “A Legal Guide to being a Lebanese Woman” Why Lebanon? Lebanon has always had the image and reputation of being the most open and liberal country in the Arab world. Lebanese women in particular are […]
Behar Ali is a woman with a mission. As a young woman, she lived through the infamous poison gas attack on Halabja in the late eighties in Iraq. When Saddam Hussein started another campaign of violence against the Kurds in the mid-nineties, Behar fled to the Netherlands where she specialised in women’s rights. After the […]
The Bridges project (formerly known as Shelter Me) is a unique initiative in the Gulf region, in which Migrant-Rights.org and Hivos collaborate to improve the employment relationship between employers and their domestic workers. Part of our approach is to work with international businesses to develop a Code of Conduct to support and guide their staff […]
16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence November 25, 2016 marks the beginning of the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign, an international campaign which commences on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (Nov 25) and concludes on International Human Rights Day (Dec 10). In the context of […]