ICTJ recently held a meeting in Amman, Jordan on gender and transitional justice as a part of a series of activities seeking to provide women policymakers and activists with the tools needed to engage in transitional justice initiatives. The conference was a four day event involving 25 participants from Palestine, Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt.
In this podcast, Kelli Muddell, director of ICTJ’s Gender Justice Program, discusses some of the topics that arose at the conference as well as future plans for the region. Although women have been at the forefront of protests in certain countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt, “they often fall by the wayside once the transitions take place and once new leaders come to power,” Muddell said.
One key topic brought up at the conference was the issue of sequencing, or what transitional justice mechanisms should be implemented first. “There is sort of an impatience of wanting to see something done, and wanting to see people held accountable,” Muddell said. “But there needed to be an acknowledgement that these processes can take a really long time. And just because something may not happen right away…doesn’t mean a process can’t come into being later on.”
Muddell also noted that exchanges between countries on what initiatives they're working on and what strategies they have implemented has proven to be really helpful in advancing transitional justice. Thus, they developed the idea of starting a network of gender and transitional justice in the region, through some type of web platform, where activists could continue to share their experiences and “stay connected in a regionally focused way.”
Listen to the Podcast
[Download](/sites/default/files/Muddell_ICTJ_Podcast_07172011.mp3) | Duration: 8mins | File size: 4.5MBWomen protestors in Tahrir Square February 6, 2011. Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera English.
