Jane Gabriel is Programme Director of openDemocracy's 50.50 editorial project. She directed more than thirty documentaries for Channel Four Television and the BBC international current affairs series "Correspondent" before joining openDemocracy. Jane was a member of Britain's first all women television production company, Broadside.

Jane's contributions to openDemocracy include a series of podcasts with women working against violence across the Arab region, including interviews with Dr Azza Baydoun on Femicide and Patriarchy, Zoya Rouhana on Ending private justice in Lebanon, Ekhlas Fadem Ali on Iraqi women refugees in Syria and Mouna Ghanem on the struggle for women's rights in Syria. Also -  Afaf El-Sayyed,  Yakin Ertürk, John Holmes, Hibaaq Osman, and a package on women's rights in Jordan and podcasts with the Pathways of Women's Empowerment research programme including Balghis Badri on Women beyond the war in Sudan, the Women and Memory collective . She has reported on the Commission on the Status of Women 2008 and the Commission on the Status of Women 2007 the Nobel Women's Initiative conference in 2007 and the Marie Stopes Global Safe Abortion conference  2007, plus the annual 16 Days against Gender Violence 2007and 2008

Recent articles

The film director Theo Angelopoulos talks to openDemocracy's Jane Gabriel about the turmoil in Greece and about his new film ‘The Dust of Time'

In Syria, decree 121 specifically bans organisations working for women's rights, but many women's groups and associations have met informally in private places for years. In this podcast, women from four different organisations based in Damascus speak to Jane Gabriel about their efforts to improve the status of women through research, campaigning and education. Some are working with social surveys of public opinion; others are in dialogue with moderate religious leaders.  All of them are trying to get the personal status and punishment codes reformed. As activist Mouna Ghanem says "it is very very discriminatory....for example the punishment of rape, whereby if the man rapes a woman and decides to marry her he will not be punished, they don't really ask the women if she wants to marry this man or not, she just has to marry him because he raped her, so she is the victim twice".

There is some support for improving women's rights from the Syrian government, but at the same time more space is being given to conservative religious authorities in the public arena who are profoundly opposed to CEDAW. The association of ‘women's rights' with an American agenda and the invasion of Iraq also remains firmly embedded in the public mind.  Syrian women are finding it harder and harder to make any progress to have women's rights recognised as human rights, but say "the fight doesn't stop: this is not the end of the story".  Listen now

Also: One man's battle for women's rights: NESA SYRIA - a national campaign to end "honour killing"

Three years ago Bassam AlKhadi left his job as a journalist working on a national paper and launched Nesa Syria, a website dedicated to recognizing women's rights as human rights and campaigning for the repeal of article 548 which permits ‘honour killing'. Known as the Syrian Women Observatory, the goal of the organisation is to conduct a nationwide dialogue to make the issue of honour killing a national priority.

Nesa Syria is based on the principle that women's rights are human rights and works to promote citizenship. The organisation is building a network of organisations and NGO's committed to building a civil society in which women and men are equal.Partners in the campaign come from different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds, media personnel and governmental organizations.

There are no official figures for the number of women killed in "honour crimes" in Syria, but researchers believe that there are between 200 and 300 women killed every year. The main reasons given for the murders are marrying a man not approved of by the woman's family, suspicion of sexual activity (whether the woman is married or single) and the desire to obtain property belonging to the woman.

An on-line petition to repeal article 548 has been signed by 10,254 women and men to date. More than twenty five seminars and workshops have been convened and last month for the first time a national forum on honour crimes was held to debate honour killing, it was attended by lawyers, religious authorities, government employees and men and women working to promote women's rights. The forum concluded with a recommendation that article 548 be repealed. Following the workshop, Nesa Syria said "The challenge now is to implement the recommendations of the national forum and to work against all forms of violence and discrimination against women. We know that this requires a lot of work and may not happen in a short time, but we believe it is possible to achieve if we work on a basis of trust".

There are believed to be more than three million Iraqi refugees living in Syria: initially allowed in without restriction and treated as guests, they are finding it harder to survive as months turn into years. For the women refugees, often alone or widowed with children, poverty is driving increasing numbers to earn a living through prostitution and ‘muta’ marriages – ‘temporary marriages of pleasure’. Jane Gabriel has been in Damascus to meet Iraqi women refugees and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd who are providing shelter and support. Listen now

Ekhlas Fadem Ali is widowed with two small daughters. She was fortunate to find a place in the shelter run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd when she first arrived in Syria.

Dr Azza Baydoun has analysed every ‘honour killing' in Lebanon that has gone before the courts since 1999 and found that behind the plea of offended honour lies the crime of femicide. The women were shot, stabbed, beaten, strangled, burnt or poisoned, by men, because they were women: if they had been men they would not have been killed. Dr Baydoun talked to Jane Gabriel in Beirut about the patriarchal concepts of ‘deviant women' and ‘deficient men' in her research. Listen now. 

Dr Baydoun's research is part of the movement behind the introduction of Lebanon's first ever law to protect women against violence. The draft Family Violence Bill is now being considered by the government and the campaign to have it passed into law is being run by KAFA.

Professor Azza Baydoun teaches at the Lebanese University in Beirut. She is the author of a number of books including ‘Manhood and the Change in women's State of Affairs'. Annahar Publishing House (2007) and ‘Women and Associations: The Lebanese women between doing justice to themselves and serving others'. Annahar Publishing House, Beirut. (2002)

This is the first in a series of podcasts on openDemocracy amplifying the voices of women from across the Arab region.

For the first time in Lebanese history, government ministers have promised to introduce legal reforms to protect women against violence.                

The Family Violence Bill now under consideration is the result of a fifteen year campaign headed by women to bring the law onto their side. Zoya Rouhana, Caroline Succar and Ghada Al Sahili spoke to Jane Gabriel about the long struggle to put an end to the private justice within Lebanese extended families that causes so much of the violence against women. Listen Now.

There are nineteen religious sects in Lebanon, fifteen of which have their own personal status codes that govern so much of women's lives. Divided by religion, the personal status codes are united in their discrimination against women. For years women have tried to get the personal status codes amended without success. The Family Violence Bill avoids confrontation with the personal status codes and the religious groups behind them, because it is a civil law bringing violence against women into the public domain and requiring the State to take a role in protecting women. 

                                                              Zoya Rouhana 

The Family Violence Bill will also go some way to addressing ‘honour killings' which are dealt with under Article 562 of the Lebanese penal code. Research by Dr Azza Baydoun into the facts behind recent honour killings revealed the crimes to be the tip of the iceberg, behind which lies a pattern of persistent daily violence against women within their extended families. The women murdered in ‘honour killings' had suffered violence for a long time before they were killed. By making violence a crime wherever it is committed the Family Violence Bill is intended to play a preventive role by preventing violence from the first time it starts.

The Lebanese government will consider the Bill in the coming months before presenting it to Parliament. Read more on the campaign to turn the Bill into Law. Meanwhile KAFA is campaigning full time and has launched a short film competition called Create a Film, Create a Law to find the best short film to convince legislators that a law on domestic violence is crucial.

Zoya Rouhana is a former member of the Executive Committee of the League of Lebanese Women's Rights. She was also a founder member of the Lebanese Council to Resist Violence against Women. She is the director of KAFA (Enough) Violence & Exploitation, a civil association focusing on fighting violence against women, child sexual abuse and trafficking.

Caroline Succar works for the Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering which runs centres for women suffering from violence and campaigns for the implementation of CEDAW in Lebanon.

Dr Ghada Al Sahili is a paediatrician working with Elissar, to break the taboo around the issue of violence against women and to offer services to women suffering from violence

 Caroline Succar