The proposed bill recommends multiple provisions that match with what the President of the
Republic is concerned about, namely to grant more space to women in the elected
assemblies.
The text confirms the principle to grant a quota of 30% for the representation of women in
elected assemblies, the alterning between male and female candidates on the electoral lists to
guarantee a larger presence of elected women in the assemblies and, finally, measures
sanctioning political parties that do not respect these provisions.
C. VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Violence against women is both a human rights violation and a form of discrimination against
women. It is an issue of human rights and health.
Endorsed by the Algerian government in 2007, the national strategy for combatting violence
against women, implemented by the State secretary in charge of family and women, is
intended as a general framework of intervention to raise awareness, protect, and address this
issue.
As a reminder, this strategy rests on three principal strands: Firstly, it is about ensuring the
protection and security of women by an appropriate support, a strong clinical management
of the violence committed, and guaranteing judicial assistance. Secondly, to organise
solidarity through social and economic reintegration of abused women, and finally, to
implement measures, procedures and reforms at the judicial and constitutional level.
In 2008, the police services registered 9.517 complaints of violence against women, while
only during the first six months of this year, the number has reached 4.409 cases. This is
enormous insofar as this number only represents the cases treated by the National Safety,
that is to say in urban zones.
The same statistics reveal a considerable increase in complaints: during the first ten months of
2008, there were 2675 complaints, which increased to 4409 during the same period in
2009.
Among married couples, the rate amounts to 2.5% regarding psychological violence and
9.4% for the physical violence, while within the family, physical violence represents 5.2% of
the cases and sexual aggression 0.6%.
A survey by the National Statistics Office, financed by UNICEF, reveals that 67.9% of
Algerian women accept the violence of their husband, meaning more than 2 out of 3 women.
This means that the weight of traditions is so important that it will be difficult and take a long