Gender and Violence in Algeria

Speaker: Dr Zahia Smail Salhi, University of Leeds

Tuesday 1 November 2011, 18:30 - 20:00, Thai Theatre

The discriminatory provisions of the Algerian Family Code (1984) have facilitated violence against women, legitimized discrimination in practice and made it particularly difficult for them to deal with the consequences of widespread human rights abuses brought about by Islamic terrorism which amounted to femicide; the most extreme form of sexist terrorism. Throughout the 1990s Algerian women led a dual struggle; whilst the urgency of the situation at stake engaged them to resist the Islamist femicide whose main aim is to preserve male supremacy under the cover of Islamic legitimacy, this did not detract the women's groups from their prime battle to have the Family Code repealed.

This paper argues that Islamist violence in Algeria reached the level of femicide, as it targeted women's bodies as a battle-field, and while it  strives to understand the causes and the roots of the Islamist femicide and the reasons why women are at the centre of the Algerian Islamist venture, it also looks at the ways in which organised and spontaneous resistance by women worked together for the same cause, and analyses the conditions which favoured the coming of age of the Algerian feminist movement and the new prospects of Algerian women in the post-terrorism era.

By exposing Islamist violence against women as femicide, this paper hopes to change existing perceptions of violence against women, and alter the way in which public opinion both in MENA and beyond responds to acts of femicide.

This lecture is open to all and registration is not required.
Admission is on a first come first served basis.

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