Violence against women has been recognized by most Arab Statesas a phenomenon that needs focused attention, especially with goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Goals which allocates three targets to eliminate violence and discrimination against women. This has put further pressure on States to address the issue systematically and in accordance with due diligence standards that hold them accountable to prevent, respond, protect and provide remedies for violence against women irrespective of perpetrator or place.
Most Arab States have been active in addressing this salient issue through national reform that mainly focused on the legislative aspect. Following the political developments that swept the region in 2010, Tunisia and Egypt introduced constitutional reform to explicitly safeguard women from violence perpetrated against them. In addition, five Arab States,namely Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Tunisia, have passed laws to combat violence against women, and six States have draft laws to address the issue. Other Arab States have introduced partial reform to their exiting penal codes. For example, in 2014, Egypt amended article 306 of its penal code and categorized sexual harassment in public spaces as a crime. It also amended article 242 in 2016 to criminalize female genital mutilation.
Parallel to the legal reform, nine Arab States have developed national strategies specifically focused on violence against women with clear plans to address the issue. Other States have dedicated a section in their national strategy for the empowerment of women to tackle violence against women, while other States are still ignoring this phenomenon.
However, this considerable and unprecedented progress has not led to a reduction in the prevalence of violence against women, which is still among the highest in the world. Progress has not yet trickled down because of inconsistentnational responses to violence against women, especially the disconnect between due diligence standards of international policy and their translation at the national levels. Arab States still lack a comprehensive response, one that engages constitutional and legal reforms aligned with international obligations and the development of a policy framework supported by a budget to put national strategies into operation.
In the Arab region, only Egypt has estimated the cost of violence against women borne by the survivor of violence and the State (2.17 billion Egyptian pounds) in 2015, and Palestine has started a costing exercise. The lack of such approach is problematic, since it limits the understanding of the consequences of violence against women to the survivors and disregard the various national actors that bear direct and indirect costs. A clear understanding of the cost of violence against women is thus crucial to assess the impact of this problem on the household, family, and national economy, as well as the immediate and long-term costs. For example, the costing exercise estimates the loss of earning for women experiencing violence to be equivalent to 2-3 per cent of a country s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It also estimates the resources and services required for effective prevention programmesand possible areas of government investment and budget allocation.
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)has recently published a study on the status of Arab women titledViolence against Women: What Is at Stake, which reveals that the absence of a costing approach to addressing violence against women affects progress. It recommends Arab States to calculate the costs borne by States and society, including survivors of violence, civil society, local communities and States institutions to prevent, protect, prosecute and compensate for violence. The study shows that costing violence against women provides evidence that such violence drains resources from the various government sectors and limits development initiatives, such as poverty reduction and wellbeing efforts. It also demonstrates that estimating the cost of violence provides an advocacy tool to inform policy spending priorities and introduce a shift in national budget allocations.
To move from research to operation, ESCWA is supporting Palestine in undertaking a costing exercise with the understanding that Palestinian women are suffering double violence, at home and by the Israeli occupation. The process was initiated by a filed mission to understand the complexity of the problem and examine data availability on the issue. It was followed by national consultations to sensitize Government stakeholders on the importance of costing violence against women and how it can be used as an advocacy tool to introduce policy reform.
