Youth and Gender Equality Issues in the Middle East

This paper analyzes the contemporary issues on youth and gender in the Middle East and provides recommendations and suggestions to the Governments of the Middle East Countries to help in solving the current issues on gender equality and youth. The issues affecting the young people in Middles East range from radicalism to poor education systems, unemployment and economic and social exclusion. Gender equality is currently a universal debate with a number or countries especially in Europe championing for the empowerment of the female to achieve gender equality in the society. However, in the Middle East, gender equality debates still do not have space in most of the countries in the Middle East.

Running Head; YOUTH AND GENDER
Youth and Gender Equality Issues in the Middle East
Name
Institution

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Introduction
The word youth is used in reference to people of ages between childhoods and thirty five
year old (Kurtipek, Çelik, Gümüş & Yilmaz, 2017). Other authors choose to refer to the group
as young people while others use the phrase ‘young adults’. The young people in the Middle
East, the youth face challenges ranging for unemployment, inadequate education, exposure to
violence and extremist groups and disruption of live hoods due to refugee situations. Gender on
the other had is the social cultural and biological differences that define a human being as male
or female (Okorodudu, 2018). Gender equality is currently a universal debate with a number or
countries especially in Europe championing for the empowerment of the female to achieve
gender equality in the society. However, in the Middle East, gender equality debates still do not
have space in most of the countries in the Middle East. This paper analyses the contemporary
issues on youth and gender in the Middle East and further provides recommendations and
suggestions to the Governments of the Middle East Countries to help in solving the current
issues on gender equality and youth.
Issues Affecting the Youth in Middle East
The issues affecting the young people in Middles East range from radicalism to poor
education systems, unemployment and economic and social exclusion. Violent extremism,
especially in the countries like Yemen should not be taken lightly as it has a great impact on the
life of the young people of the Middle East (Zaalouk, 2014). Majority of people involved in the
wars are young individuals who have been radicalized to fight for believes that do not benefit
them as individuals or the society but create havoc in the community. However, that is not the
only war the youth in the Middle East are currently fighting. A good number of other youth have

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tough wars to fight. They have to face poor education system that is tuned towards preparing
them to take up office jobs (Hashemi, 2017). The education system in the Middle Eastern
countries is based on provision of knowledge and skills to help the youth land government jobs
or office jobs, commonly referred to as white collar jobs. The system does very little in giving
the youth skills that they can use for income generation without having to be employed.
Accompanying the giant of poor education system is the reality of high unemployment rates.
While the world’ average unemployment rates are between 10% to 20%, the unemployment rates
are between 20% to 40% in the Middle East (Dunn, M. dunn, & Blank, A. blank (2018).
Furthermore the cost of living is also relatively high in both the oil producing countries and non-
oil producing countries. To the youth, it simply means that they have to remain both
economically and socially excluded as they are unable to afford proper housing, a contributing
factor to late marriages and dependency.
Gender Issues in the Middle East
While the world is starting to have debates and implementing always that enhance gender
equality. The Middle East countries seem to have a long way to go. In the recent research , it was
found out that in a majority of households, the male are the major decision makers and that there
are roles that are assigned to the female in the household. The notion is not only held among the
men in the Middle East but some of the women have accepted to abide by the norms and dare not
to challenge the status quo (Auletto, Kim, & Marias, 2017). The cases of domestic violence
against women are also rampant in the middles east and some of the ladies find it normal for
their husbands to physically abuse them once in a while. Due to the position that the society in
the Middle East has set aside for the women in the society, it is not easy for a woman to hold any
leadership position.

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Recommendations
The governments in the Middle East should step up and develop policies that address
issues affecting the youth and women in the society. Some of the short falls that the women and
the youth face in The Middle East are as a result of inadequate or poorly set policies. The
government should protect the women against gender based violence and other cultural practices
that violets the international human rights of the women. Even though most of the issues
affecting the women in the Middle East are majorly based on societal norms, there is need for
government intervention in terms of affirmative action policies in favor of the female population
(Hideg & Ferris, 2017). The affirmative action policies should address issues of equal
educational opportunities for both male and female children in Middle East, Leadership capacity
building among women, and strict laws against domestic violence against women. To address
issues on youth, there is need for sensitization of the youth against radicalism. This can be
achieved by creating purpose for the youth and making efforts to remove them from misery and
continuous state of dependency. The governments should consider a change in the educational
curriculum as well to come up with a curriculum that helps the youth develop skills that they can
use in income generation without necessarily waiting for employment (Palermo, Gibson,
Meiklejohn, Courtney & Dart, 2017). While some governments would want to come up with
affordable housing projects to accommodate the low income youths, it is advisable to
economically empower the youth to rise their income so that they can become economically
competitive. Skills based education system will help the future generation to become self reliant
at very early stages of their youth hens tackling the problems of unemployment, economic and
social exclusion by eliminating dependency.
Conclusion

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There exist a number of challenges facing the youth and the female population in the
Middle East. Some of the issues touching on the youth are high unemployment rate, poor
education system, high dependency levels and social and economic exclusion. On the other hand,
the issues affecting the female gender in the same context range from domestic violence to
education isolation and social and economic limitations. The governments of the Middle East
countries can solve these problems though adequate policies and laws in place. To address issues
pertaining the youth, it is vital for the Governments to consider sensitization programs among the
youth against radicalization. Furthermore, the nations should consider changing their education
system to a skills based education system to help solve the problem of unemployment and
dependency among the youth. Through the development of skills the youths will be
economically empowered and therefore also solving the economic segregation problem.
Economically empowered youths will then be able accomplish their societal ambitions. The
change in the education system therefore solves a number of issues relating to the youth
currently. However, it should be noted that the skills based education system is not a quick fix
for the current problems but a long term gradual process of change. The impact of the
implementation of such an educational system will only be visible in the long run.

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References
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