Five women activists and practitioners from the Middle East and North Africa discussed the challenges to women’s security in MENA countries in the post-Arab Spring period. The panelists were part of a larger delegation from the region brought together by Karama, a regional NGO working on capacity building of women for peace and security in the Middle East.

On March 7, the Middle East Program and the Global Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted a conversation, “Challenges to Women’s Security in the MENA Region” with Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, Special Representative to Civil Society for the League of Arab States and  Secretary General, Jordan; Mouna Ghanem, Deputy for the President of the Building the Syrian State (BSS) Movement, Syria; Azza Kamel, Founder and Director, Appropriate Communication Techniques for Development, Egypt; Zahra’ Langhi, Co-founder of Libyan Women’s Platform for Peace (LWPP), Libya; and Faiza Mohamed, Director of the Nairobi Office of Equality Now, Somalia/Djibouti. Jane Harman, Director, President and CEO of the Wilson Center, provided opening remarks. Haleh Esfandiari, Director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, moderated the discussion.

To read the full recap, please visit the Woodrow Wilson Center online.

To read Mouna Ghanem’s contribution to the Woodrow Wilson Center publication “Challenges to Women’s Security in the MENA Region” please click here.