End Arab discrimination against women -rights groups

RABAT, June 11 (Reuters) Thirty-five Arab rights groups called on Arab governments to end discrimination against women and embrace a United Nations convention to enshrine women's rights.

Despite patchy progress by Tunisia, Morocco and Lebanon, stark discrimination against women is widespread in most of the 21 Arab states in the region, women's rights activists said yesterday.

Discrimination against women ranges from a denial of the right to drive or show head hair in public in Saudi Arabia to the denial of marriage and divorce rights, the groups said.

Women are also denied equal inheritance rights and face political discrimination that prevents them from attaining high office, the groups said.

''(The Arab region) has a wider gap of inequality between women and men than anywhere else in the world,'' said groups from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Bahrain at the end of a three-day meeting in Rabat.

''The Arab world is also a region of flagrant discrimination against women and the violation of their rights.'' The groups launched a campaign to pressure governments in North Africa and the Middle East to endorse an ''equality without limits'' convention adopted after the 1995 UN women's conference in Beijing.

Some 179 governments have signed the convention. 18 of 21 Arab governments have ratified it but attached reservations.

Those governments should sign the convention's Optional Protocol and lift their reservations, which rendered the convention useless as an anti-discrimination tool, the groups said.

''We call on all progressive forces in the region and across the world. Their support to our regional campaign is crucial to achieve our common objective of real equality,'' the groups said.

REUTERS SHB RAI0901