By Brendan Sweeney
The Arab European Human Rights Dialogue (AEHRD) was established in 2005 by the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) in cooperation with the National Centre for Human Rights in Jordan. In 2008, meanwhile, the Moroccan Advisory Council on Human Rights joined the secretariat and took a leading role in consolidating the Dialogue.
In a process designed to cultivate dynamic dialogue and interaction among National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), the Dialogue supports the development of common understanding as well as the implementation of human rights in Arab countries and Europe.
The forthcoming meeting, which will be hosted by the Qatari National Human Rights Committee, will address global and regional discussions and actions on how to mainstream gender equality across the Arab world and Europe.
It is expected that no fewer than 14 NHRIs - seven each from Europe and the Arab world – along with a number of relevant EU and UN agencies will attend the Dialogue to discuss how national human rights institutions in the two regions are promoting and protecting the rights of women.
The AEHRD has so far organized four High-Level Conferences and a number of working group meetings to discuss human rights concerns such as access to information, counterterrorism measures, discrimination and migration.
The most recent conference was held in The Hague in March 2009, where participants discussed how to foster the human rights of migrant workers in the two regions. This was followed by a meeting of the secretariat in Amman, Jordan in July 2009 where members of the secretariat discussed how to realize the policy recommendations of the Dialogue conference in The Hague.
Mu’ayyad Mehyar, DIHR Programme Manager for the Arab-European Dialogue, who is organising the meeting, believes that the March conference will open the way for NHRIs to contribute significantly to the global debate on women's rights and gender equality.
“The gap between the rights of men and those of women is one of the most visible and significant differences between Europe and the Arab world, and dealing with resistance to women's equality is one of the most challenging tasks we face. Some of the reforms adopted in recent years, such as the new family code passed into law in Morocco in 2004, have the potential to trigger wide-ranging gains for women's rights. But the passage of laws that guarantee equal rights for women and men means little if those guarantees are not enforced. Most Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa have guarantees of equal rights written into their constitutions, but nowhere have these guarantees been effectively enforced,” he said.
“This Dialogue will enable participants from Europe as well as the Arab World to discuss, review and reflect on their experiences and practices to promote women’s rights and gender equality as well as to highlight the importance of coordination and collaboration amongst each other as well as with international organizations, UN agencies and regional EU and Arab institutions,” he concluded.
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