INTRODUCTION
Although Algerian women played a key role in the war for independence from France, which lasted from 1954 to 1962, the battle for gender equality has long been overshadowed by the nationalist struggle. Since 1962, government officials have formally acknowledged women's central role in the construction of an independent nation. However, very few grassroots feminist organizations developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Even former female combatants in the independence struggle often argued that nationalist objectives were more pressing than the elimination of gender discrimination.
The National Liberation Front (FLN), which led the independence movement and remains the ruling party in Algeria, was largely ambivalent on gender issues. The socialist aspects of its ideology advocated women's equality, but more conservative strains within the movement viewed women as the vessels of Islamic and traditional values. In the two decades following independence, groups that supported divergent political projects clashed over personal status issues, and their failure to reach a consensus thwarted various attempts to codify family law. In 1981, an extremely conservative draft family law was vehemently rejected by a grassroots movement of women from different professional backgrounds, including university professors, schoolteachers, medical doctors, and laborers. They came together to organize petitions and demonstrate against the proposed legislation. Under this pressure, the government retracted the 1981 draft, but on June 9, 1984, a very similar code was passed without public debate.[1]
The 1984 family code established the concept of an agnatic family structure characterized by patriarchal authority. Under this code, which was designed to appeal to Islamic fundamentalists by meeting a few of their basic priorities, women were primarily recognized as guardians of kin and tradition rather than as autonomous individuals.[2] In 2005, partly under the pressure of women's organizations, the family code was finally amended by the government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in power since 1999.
The new code has brought a number of positive changes. It grants women more rights in terms of divorce and housing, reduces the role of a woman's male guardian to a largely symbolic status, and ensures Algerian women's right to transmit citizenship to their children. However, most women's rights groups continue to regard the amended code as far too hesitant to create true gender equality.
While the 2005 revision of the family code represents the most important change for women's rights over the last five years, there were several other positive developments. The Algerian constitution, amended in 2008, now officially recognizes women's political role (Article 31 bis). Since a new article was added to the penal code (Article 341 bis) in 2004 to penalize sexual harassment, some victims have stood up and decided to file suits. Women's security in the public space has continued to improve, and even though the threat of attacks by radical groups remains real, the memory of the "Black Decade" of political and civil violence is slowly fading away. The fighting, triggered by the cancellation of democratic election results in 1991, had pitted Islamist groups against the FLN and caused around 100,000 deaths, with terrible consequences for women's security.
However, some existing freedoms for both men and women have been recently challenged, including religious freedom. The ordinance 06-03, passed in February 2006, criminalized attempts by groups or individuals to convert Muslims to another religion, intimidating a number of Muslim women who had converted to Christianity. The broader political conditions have also helped to obstruct progress on women's rights. A 2008 constitutional amendment suppressing presidential term limits has further reduced the chances of political change, and despite the repeated objections of human rights activists, the government maintains the state of emergency that was first declared in February 1992 and allows the authorities to circumvent the rule of law in the name of national security. The state of emergency is increasingly seen as a way for the government to monitor associations and prevent the formation of a democratic public sphere. Similarly, the 2005 National Charter on Peace and Reconciliation criminalizes the activities of organizations that investigate the disappearance of civilians at the hands of the military or Islamist groups during the civil conflict.
A number of features of Algerian society continue to play against women's emancipation and have not changed substantially over the last five years. Except in a few cities such as Algiers and Oran, divisions between secularists and advocates of a more religiously oriented way of life remain important. While these divisions do not prevent the hybridization of practices, they are a significant barrier to the emergence of productive public debates. Most discussions on gender and women adhere to this antagonistic structure. Conditions for women are also greatly affected by the clientelist dimension of social relations. Algerian society is organized around competing networks of influence (clienteles), and each may take up or drop the defense of women's rights to suit their interests at any given time. Finally, the housing crisis that has developed since the early 1990s is a major obstacle to women's emancipation, particularly for divorced or single women. Despite several programs launched by the government, housing remains insufficient, rents are too high, the housing infrastructure is extremely precarious,[3] and rental transactions are subject to clientelist practices.