Gender and Violence in Islamic Societies

Patriarchy, Islamism and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa

As a result of the revolutions and movements of resistance that spread across the Middle East and North Africa after 2011, the issue of public violence by the state against both men and women dominated the headlines. But gender-based violence, in both its public and private forms, has for the most part remained unnoticed and is often ignored. The forms that this kind of violence can take are influenced by cultural norms and religious beliefs, as well as economic and political circumstances. Here, Zahia Smail Salhi brings together a wide range of examples of gender-based violence across the Middle East and North Africa, from working environments in Jordan to domestic abuse in Egypt, and from verbal violence against women in Tunisia and Algeria to analysis of violence against underage girl domestic workers in Morocco. The evidence demonstrates that the violence, far from being of universal character across the region, is instead diverse, in both its intensity and in the processes of addressing such violence.