Strategies and actions for ending violence against women and reducing HIV and AIDS infection
Leading to change: eliminating violence against women in Muslim societies
Summary report of symposium to end violence against women in Muslim societies
Authors:
; Women's Learning Partnership; UNFPA
Publisher:
Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace , 2005
This report summarises the proceedings and findings of the Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP)'s international symposium entitled "Leading to Change: Eliminating Violence Against Women in Muslim Societies," held in New York on March 1, 2005. It includes reports on speakers, discussions, and seminars.
The symposium provided a forum for prominent women leaders and activists from Muslim-majority societies to address major challenges to eliminating violence against women and girls and discuss grassroots, national, and regional efforts focusing on prevention and awareness raising, as well as ongoing efforts to reform legislation on violence and women’s human rights.
The symposium provided a forum for women from Muslim-majority societies to discuss their experiences meeting challenges and creating effective strategies to eliminate violence against women and end impunity for perpetrators of violence. It also provided an opportunity to hear international perspectives and review major global governmental and nongovernmental programs, campaigns, and action plans.
Participants engaged in active exchanges on the root causes of violence, the economic, social and developmental costs of violence, the extremist’s use of tradition and religion to perpetuate violence in the private and public sphere, and the potential impact of strategies utilising positive religious and cultural interpretations.
Finally, this symposium provided a unique opportunity for women from Muslim societies to connect and establish contact with international organisations and networks, share their experiences with activists from other backgrounds, and bring about closer ties and better understanding across cultural and ethnic lines.
