Progress Amid Resistance

•★algeriaby Nadia MarzoukiPOPULATION: 35,370,000GNI PER CAPITA: US$3,729COUNTRY RATINGS 2004 2009NONDISCRIMINATION AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE: 3.0 3.1AUTONOMY, SECURITY, AND FREEDOM OF THE PERSON: 2.4 3.0ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: 2.8 3.0POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIC VOICE: 3.0 3.0SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS: 2.9 3.0(COUNTRY RATINGS ARE BASED ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 5, WITH 1 REPRESENTING THE LOWEST AND 5 THEHIGHEST LEVEL OF FREEDOM WOMEN HAVE TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS)INTRODUCTIONAlthough Algerian women played a key role in the war for independencefrom France, which lasted from 1954 to 1962, the battle for gender equalityhas long been overshadowed by the nationalist struggle. Since 1962,government officials have formally acknowledged women’s central rolein the construction of an independent nation. However, very few grassrootsfeminist organizations developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Even formerfemale combatants in the independence struggle often argued thatnationalist objectives were more pressing than the elimination of genderdiscrimination.The National Liberation Front (FLN), which led the independencemovement and remains the ruling party in Algeria, was largely ambivalenton gender issues. The socialist aspects of its ideology advocated women’sequality, but more conservative strains within the movement viewedwomen as the vessels of Islamic and traditional values. In the two decadesfollowing independence, groups that supported divergent political projectsclashed over personal status issues, and their failure to reach a consensusthwarted various attempts to codify family law. In 1981, an extremelyconservative draft family law was vehemently rejected by a grassrootsmovement of women from different professional backgrounds, including29