The Violence of Silence - Addressing violence against women within the Human Rights frameworks of the MENA region?

Though violence against women and girls appears to be a silent pandemic across the globe, the MENA region especially has been subject to international criticism for being silent on this endemic issue. Probed by such allegations, this paper explores the often-under-illuminated instruments and documents within the regional human rights frameworks of the region, the pan-Islamic framework and the pan-Arabic framework, to assess their capacity asmeans of addressing gender-based violence. Specifically, it evaluates the contribution of the recent Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women and Girls adopted by the League of Arab States in2022. The paper argues that this Declaration may be regarded as an important symbolic step of international alignment, arguably breaking the silence ongender-based violence. However, it also concludes that it remains questionableif this instrument will gain sufficient practical impact to actually bolster the protection of women and girls against violence within the MENA region.