it argues that norms affecting womens and men s private arrangements have a strong impact on womens participation in public life the chapter contains four main sections family law physical integrity nationality and access to justice each section highlights respective international benchmarks trends in domestic legislation and compliance gaps in the mena region ln the area of family law and nationality the chapter provides an overview of the remaining legal discriminations which continue to hamper women s equality with men with regard to access to justice and genderbased violence many countries recognise the outstanding issues and aim to address the remaining gaps through national reform agendas yet further action is needed to enable equal access to justice and to eliminate violence against women which appears to be on the rise following the recent uprisings in some countries in the region