By Brendan Sweeney
The recent Dialogue meeting in Doha, which was hosted by the Qatari National Human Rights Committee, a member organization of the AEHRD Network, addressed global and regional discussions and actions on how to mainstream gender equality across the Arab world and Europe.
Established in 2005 by the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) in cooperation with the National Centre for Human Rights in Jordan, the Arab European Dialogue Human Rights Dialogue (AEHRD) is designed to cultivate dialogue between national human rights institutions (NHRIs) in Arab countries and Europe. In 2008, the Moroccan Advisory Council on Human Rights joined the secretariat and took a leading role in consolidating the Dialogue.
Representatives from 14 NHRIs - seven each from Europe and the Arab world – along with a number of relevant EU and UN agencies attended the meeting in Doha to discuss how national human rights institutions in the two regions are promoting and protecting the rights of women.
Mu’ayyad Mehyar, Programme Manager of the AEHRD at DIHR, was satisfied with the outcome of the meeting and the statement.
“The Dialogue meeting fulfilled its primary goal which was to raise consciousness and awareness of women’s rights and gender equality. We also looked at the role that NHRIs can play in promoting and protecting women’s rights and in mainstreaming gender equality in their respective countries as well as regionally. Another important achievement was that we were also able to reaffirm the "Vienna Declaration and Program of Action”. This program underlines the need for regional and cross-regional cooperation on human rights, as well as the crucial role that NHRIs can play in achieving this,” he said.
“As for the statement, it was approved in consensus, and commits the members of the Dialogue to the setting up of a working group on women’s rights and gender equality. This working group will streamline the recommendations in the Doha statement in collaboration with member NHRIs,” he concluded.
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