Five Women Human Rights Activists who are Changing the Middle East

Synopsis:

The above article presents five women human rights activists who are changing the Middle East, the first one is Tawakkol Karman, the first Yemeni and the first Arab woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize and the youngest Nobel Peace laureate to date, Tawakkol Karman tops the list. The second one is Razan Ghazzawi, she is an award-winning Syrian blogger, campaigner and human rights activist. She has been actively involved in the events during the Syrian Civil War and has been particularly outspoken on activists’ arrests and the violations of human rights committed by the Bashar al Assad regime. The third one is Moushira Mahmoud Khattab, who is a renowned human rights activist who speaks up for the rights of children and women in Egypt and the MENA region. The forth one is Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian feminist writer, human rights activist, physician and psychiatrist. Saadawi has authored many books on the subject of women and Islam and advocates human rights issues involving women. And the fifth one is Manal al-Sharif, the Women’s rights activist from Saudi Arabia who helped start a groundbreaking women’s right to drive campaign in 2011 (Nazeer 2013).

Rationale:

I choose this article as it displays the strongest Arab women activists in the Middle East. These women voices reached millions of people, and they were able to change the image enforced on Arab women all over the world. The role of women in the great upheaval in the Middle East has been woefully under-analyzed. Women did not just "join" the protests – they were a leading force behind the cultural evolution that made the protests inevitable. When women change, everything changes and women in the Muslim world are changing radically.

URL/Link: https://www.juancole.com/2013/12/activists-changing-middle.html

Keywords: Women Activists, Human Rights, Middle East

Author: Jadal