Navigating Displaced Women’s Protection in the Muslim world: Analysis of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54561/prj1901107pKeywords:
women, protection, Muslim world, OIC, violence againts women, forced migration governance, world's politicsAbstract
This article critically analyses the role of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in assisting women in conflict and displacement, focusing on its political commitments and institutional capacities. Moving away from Eurocentric models of refugee governance, it centres on a Global South actor—the OIC, a cross-regional institution bringing together 57 countries. The study uses multi-methods, including interdisciplinary semi-structured literature reviews on gender, displacement, and the OIC, alongside policy analysis of OIC humanitarian, cultural, and social resolutions from the Council of Foreign Ministers’ annual sessions (1979–2022) and the OIC Ministerial Conferences on Women (2006–2021). Findings indicate that although the OIC has articulated political commitments and introduced institutional measures in collaboration with international organisations such as the UN, its contribution remains largely symbolic due to the absence of a coordinated refugee support mechanism within its ecosystem. Nonetheless, the OIC’s soft, non-binding commitments offer ethical and moral value, rooted in Islamic principles, to enhance support for displaced women. These values may influence member states’ responses to displacement. To strengthen regional protection systems, the OIC might consider developing a complementary framework and an entity responsible for refugee support. International actors, in turn, could engage more substantively with the OIC around its faith-informed principles to advance humanitarian diplomacy and protection.
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