Egypt’s liberal Free Egyptians Party (FEP) declared its support for the calls by women’s rights organizations and NGOs , which called for anti-harassment laws, an Egyptian online news website reported on Monday.
The party said it stands against “the phenomenon of sexual harassment” and called for the passing of a law criminalizing the act, Egypt’s Bikyamasr news website reported. 

A court decision on April 22, 2012, cancelling a ministerial order barring women from entry-level jobs at the Justice Ministry is an important victory against legally-sanctioned discrimination in Kuwait, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch urged the Kuwaiti government to act on the decision, to guarantee women equal access to all public jobs, and to amend or repeal gender-based discriminatory provisions from all its legislation, according to an article from Human Rights Watch.

There are currently 59 women in the Tunisian National Constituent Assembly (NCA), out of the 217 deputies elected last fall to draft a new constitution. These 59 women were able to run in the elections as part of a political party either because they had demonstrated leadership in the past or because they negotiated with a particular party to be included on their list. The law governing the electoral process mandated that all candidate lists had to include an equal number of men and women, thereby establishing a baseline of equality, writes Sana Sbouai for for the Common Ground News Service.

A global forum of women's rights was held in Istanbul on April 19th-24th. Activists from Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Morocco, Libya and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa spoke on the forum about their ongoing battles to enshrine women’s rights into new constitutions and increase female participation in new political systems – while often facing renewed challenges to their personal freedoms. 

By overwhelming margins, young people in the Arab world think women should be allowed to hold any job they are qualified for. But in practice women aren’t given the same educational opportunities as men and far fewer actually enter the workforce. Those are the findings of a survey by the Gallup polling organization released yesterday. It found that among young people aged 23 to 29 in 22 Middle Eastern and North African countries, 70 percent of the men and 82 percent of the women polled favored equal opportunity. But the equality doesn’t reach the office cubicle or university lecture hall. The same survey found that less than a third of the women hold jobs, compared with more than 80 percent of the men.