Equality and judicial protection in family relations

This chapter examines the compliance of national legislation in MENA countries with key international standards in the area of family relations, nationality arrangements, physical integrity and access to justice. It argues that norms affecting women’s and men’s private arrangements have a strong impact on women’s participation in public life. The chapter contains four main sections: family law, physical integrity, nationality and access to justice. Each section highlights respective international benchmarks, trends in domestic legislation and compliance gaps in the MENA region. In the area of family law and nationality, the chapter provides an overview of the remaining legal discriminations which continue to hamper women’s equality with men. With regard to access to justice and gender-based violence, many countries recognise the outstanding issues and aim to address the remaining gaps through national reform agendas. Yet, further action is needed to enable equal access to justice and to eliminate violence against women, which appears to be on the rise following the recent uprisings in some countries in the region. The chapter concludes with policy options that could be undertaken by governments to address the remaining gaps.