Women S Rights Activists

"He has the same opinion as us"

"Some two or three months after I arrived in prison [in 1959], I felt a desire to paint and with it came a refusal to surrender to the status quo…I would go up to the roof of the building to paint anything I could find, eventually painting the inmates."

"One of the most important subjects I painted from inside the prison was Inshirah, who had been sentenced to death, but her execution had been postponed for one year until her child was weaned. Those sentenced to be executed were placed in a cell under special guard so they wouldn’t commit suicide, and they wore red uniforms. While awaiting Inshirah’s execution, I felt the massive tragedy of her story, as she had killed and stolen under the pressure of extremely harsh conditions and overwhelming misery. When I asked to paint her, the director [of the prison] told me that it would be very depressing. I did indeed paint her and her son - this was one of the paintings that were confiscated by the Criminal Investigations Department."

"There was a small tributary of the Nile where sailboats would pass by. We would watch from inside the prison as the sails caught the wind and men climbed up the masts to tie them down. Seeing the wind in the sails stirred many sorrows in me, and sparked an uncontrollable desire for freedom.. I obtained permission from the General Manager to go up to the roof of the warehouse..[and] when the boats appeared [the other inmates] cried out ‘The boats are here!’ I painted many pictures of sailboats, depicting our immobility against the movement of the sails."

"The European feminist imposed the false argument “Rape is to women what lynching is to Blacks”. Women in the text suffered from double domination and double enslavement by the colonial phallocratic."

"In the phallocratic system European women and African women suffers oppression and exploitation by the capitalist as the male worker. Women also struggle wage on their own native land. Women and man fighting and bearing arms for the liberation of their country, only then they are seen to be equal as man. Women are capable just as men in assimilating skills of guerrilla warfare."

"Phallocratic and patriarchy maintained sexual violence and controlled women. Their way of controlling was to rape, female genital mutilation, force marriage and polygamy. European did not succeed in wiping out the black African civilization. The mothers/ancestors of the country, they held on to their belief to keep African civilization alive."

"Women must fight and realize the system that is controlling and denying them, that system is patriarchal and phallocratic. Many were unconscious whether to rebel against this system that exploits them or accept it and remained in slavery. So many women were confused on what they should do because if they rebel they were dehumanized and disposed of."

"The person who shot my husband was taller"

"General Khaled Nezzar was the one who asked him to save the country, and Ali Haroun traveled to Morocco to speak with him."

"The European view point of exploitation of women in Europe compared to the African American women shows an inaccurate judgment."

"he sent people to initiate dialogue with its leaders."

"After some time I lost the desire to paint the prison and its inmates — the whole place disgusted me. I began to paint what nature there was behind bars, as we did have some gardens, trees and flowers. I was fascinated by a tree that was near the barbed wire - I’d paint it in every season, and such meticulous attention to a single object taught me a lot. If I’d be outside the prison I never would have painted just that one tree. My fellow inmates even named the tree after me; they called it ‘Inji’s tree."

"It was dictated to him by his love for the homeland"

"I mean a lot of African countries cannot meet the AU requirement of 15% of your GDP"

"I think that, my expectations from this conference, is that, we must be able to have a good leverage when it comes to health issues"

"Climate change is a phenomenon that has come to stay with the world, so the public needs to be educated on the nature and how to cope with the situation"

"The Moudawana reform is more than symbolic. It’s a substantial shift that impacts real, everyday lives. It represents a triumph of our struggle and a step towards real equality."

"It is one of my oldest commitments and it is central to my activism. I do not spend a night without waking up to follow the news feed and lament the fate of the poor victims. We are noe three months into the war and the situation is becoming truly unbearable. To go back in time, I even consider that the Palestinian question was one of the reasons for the political commitments of those of my generations."

"It was during this period that the Marxism-Leninist movements emerged and that protest against the regime increased. Young people already consider that the powers in place were unable to satisfy the political and social demands within their own countries, and that with the Palestinian question, they proved that they were also incapable of defending a cause that fascinated the entire Arab world in the midst of a Pan-Arabist surge."

"We were convinced that only Arab unity could get us out of the political lethargy in which we lived and that this could bring us freedom and democracy."

"But it is true that we do not realise how much time passes; the world is moving faster today than it was then. And what is happening there is not encouraging. The situation in Gaza for example, literally makes me sick."

"In Morocco, the 1967 war came after the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barks and the establishment of the state of emergency, which exacerbated tensions between the government and the left-wing opposition and reinforced the revolutionary need in our country."

"Climate change" affects more than just a change in the weather; it refers to seasonal changes over a long period of time"

"We must work together as a team – both developing countries and the developed countries. And I think that the issue of knowledge sharing is very, very important because these days, viruses, bacteria, they don’t know whether you’re a developing country, or you’re a developed country. Looking at the various epidemics, that, we’re experiencing all over the world. So, this is the time that we need to forge together, work together, share our knowledge and then also help regional institutions with common focus to enable us fight the disease burden."

"The role of women is strong and we have addressed this quite often. We have a number of women in decision-making positions in the legislature, in the communities and in regions, and we have now acquired 30% representation by women"

"Well, I think, yes, he will still achieve his zero level tolerance towards corruption. I think it’s something that happened about two to three years ago. And the Ministry of Health, we have instituted an enquiry into the importation into the country of these fake condoms, the culprits are going to be dealt with and we’ll make sure that the policies regarding inspection and importation of, not only condoms but medicines, and any medical logistics would be strengthened."

"All in all, there were more than 1,700 scenes that were clearly offensive to women, including some that incited violence against women."

"Girls are more aware of their rights and have the cour­age to submit complaints against harassers to the police."

"And when the small tin lamp that went off most of the times when i was almost finishing my homework, i started dreaming of my own light. I dreamt of having electricity in future and i forgot all the reasons why something should not work and found on reason why it should."

"Few women believe that they will be able to reach whatever position they want, regardless of their abilities."

"Always go with the choice that always scares you because that is the choice that requires most from you"

"Women must be a key partner in preventing the propagation of offensive stereotypes and views."

"This is the expression that young people invented, who took to the streets, who protested — sometimes violently — to demand change for greater freedom, dignity, for work, and for the sharing of wealth"

"This revolution took place without weapons, but under the auspices of the media with an expression that men “get lost”"

"In Ghana, we have some priority; we’re looking at access to quality health care and then we’re also looking at maternal and child health care; we’re looking at providing skilled medical personnel, doctors, nurses, midwives, to support maternal and child care. Then we’re also looking at strengthening community health centres across the country which we call the chip compounds."

"The new constitution was done in a participatory manner; all the different voices participated and this was done after a period of discussion in an atmosphere of openness- there was no criticism, there were no critiques- and this took place nowhere else in this way except for Tunisia, which seems to have followed the Moroccan example"

"Basically, it means that we can reach out to the vulnerable community to provide them with basic health care; and on our high agenda is also dealing with malaria, tuberculosis, HIV. So, these are some of the critical areas that the ministry is dealing with; and of course, public health. And when we talk about public health, we are talking about prevention, we’re talking about information and also we’re talking about immunization and then also dealing with epidemics our readiness to combat epidemics as it surfaces."

"The protest movement spread and there were many victims, a civil war came about- in some places the situation degenerated, in other places the protest was peaceful"

"The role of women is strong…Morocco is moving forward on a liberal and democratic path…we are reforming the legal system and we can use the constitution to deepen our democracy."

"The beatings begin. His name is Ismail... he is an Arab... They ask him the name of the operation, he shouts in Arabic: I don't know, the tortures are getting more and more and the torturers are shouting "impure! Speak Persian." The sound of torture is so painful that it hurts me too."

"Even if instead of me and Ismail, you put all five thousand Hafttepe workers in front of the camera and force them to confess with whips and batons, it will still not detract from the essence of the story that you are oppressors and corrupt."

"We achieve freedom when we let go of the weight of societal expectations, and when we find our people – those who love us, care for us, and hold us up when we start slipping."

"Many women lose all the privileges of a free woman when they get married and what they gain is nothing compared to what they lose."

"I feel most free when I am myself, stripped of all pretences, lounging naked on my bed, my boobies freely rolling to wherever they choose to land, my belly relaxed and soft, my thighs apart, my hands wherever they may choose to lie. With no one around me, I am my most free self."

"I spent years avoiding sex with guys because I didn’t want anyone to gossip about me. I wish I had realized sooner that no matter what I did guys would claim to have fucked me every which way under the sun."

"I have learned over time that relationships require work. When you’re younger, you have a sense of love as being magical and so relationships happen in that particular space of magic, and it’s easy to feel that’s all one needs, but now I know that relationships require work, and constant work. The desire that is in the relationship also needs to be nurtured, and thought about, and reentered and reimagined."

"Today I feel like my best sex life is being lived in my imagination. I’m a lot more free in my mind than I am in my body. I dream and fantasise a lot but I don’t necessarily create the kind of experiences that would allow me to enjoy the feelings that I think about."

"I’ve learnt to ask myself every day, Are you happy today? And if the answer is no I make a change."

"The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made by millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last."