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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters To better empower
By Dahlia Hammouda
The development experience of many nations in the past decades has highlighted the primacy of the role of women and the importance of their empowerment in the attainment of development goals. Countries wanting to move ahead can no longer afford to turn their heads away from this fact -- or so runs the reasoning that has led to the setting up of a new National Women's Council.
Established by presidential decree, the council is entrusted with drawing up a national plan for the advancement of women. Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, along with 30 public figures, women's issues and social work experts, were named council members.
The council was set up to replace the Women's National Commission, established in 1993 by a prime ministerial decree and presided over by Mrs Mubarak. The commission operated under the umbrella of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood. Due to the awareness on the part of the country's leadership of the need to reinforce the national body charged with the crucial role of women's advancement, the new council is positioned at the highest political level.
The council's establishment accomplishes one of the strategic objectives of the Beijing women's conference -- strengthening countries' national machinery for women's promotion. The Fourth World Conference on Women -- convened by the United Nations in Beijing, China in September 1995 -- was a great international mobilising force for the betterment of womens' status. Government delegates met for two weeks to work on a platform for action aimed at achieving greater equality and opportunity for women. Mrs Mubarak attended the conference at the head of a large delegation from Egypt.
The first international conference on women was held in Mexico in 1975 and started campaigning for international consensus regarding women's rights. The most lasting achievement was perhaps the beginning of an international network -- that includes the UN, governments from around the world and NGOs -- which has been growing in influence year by year.
The new council's mandate is far-reaching. It will advise on public policies that target empowering women to better perform their economic and social roles and integrating women's efforts in comprehensive development programmes. The council will follow-up on and introduce reforms to the implementation of public policy on women's issues and will advise the relevant authorities in this regard. The council will also advise on laws and decrees pertaining to women before they are presented before the concerned authorities and will recommend draft laws deemed necessary to better women's conditions. In addition to voicing opinions on all agreements related to women, the council will represent women at international conferences and organisations dealing with women's issues. Some of the council's other functions include the setting up of a research and information centre on women, holding conferences, debates and seminars on women's issues and organising awareness-raising training sessions on women's rights, duties and role in society.
The council will have 12 permanent committees, each specialised in a particular field, with one of the council members as head. The council's secretariat will be headed by a secretary-general -- to be named by the council head -- who will be in charge of running the affairs of the new body. Funding will come from government budget appropriations and those private donations which the council decides to accept.
Mrs Mubarak will preside over a council that includes four former ministers and two well-known journalists alongside prominent figures from a number of ministries, government authorities, banks, research centres and universities. They will constitute a "wise council" to brainstorm issues related to the development and empowerment of women.
One of the council members is Kamal Abul-Magd, full-time professor of law at Cairo University and former information minister. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that the council should be considered an "upgrading" of the previous Women's National Commission.
"The commission carried out many very worthy activities, the fruits of which are the issuing of the Unified Child Law and the simplification of procedures for the Personal Status Law. It also organised conferences and seminars which have served to raise awareness of women's issues," Abul-Magd said.
The commission also succeeded in correcting the popular view on womens' issues, according to Abul-Magd. "It has put the cause of women across as a family cause, not a women versus men matter. Now people are better aware of the problems facing women, like poor health care and illiteracy -- all the issues that defeat the development process," he said.
The new council, Abul-Magd said, will undertake many of the responsibilities of the commission, but on a wider scale and at a higher level. With a larger membership and more adequate resources, it will be better equipped to carry out the work of the commission more effectively.
Abul-Magd said that during the first council meetings, a better idea of the council's priorities of action will emerge. "In my opinion health care, reproductive health and illiteracy should be prioritised, especially in rural areas," he said. "Over 60 per cent of Egyptian women are illiterate. Awareness-raising programmes, seminars and outreach activities undertaken by the media and others are not properly understood by these women. They have to receive a basic education first," he stressed.
Abul-Magd said that the new council is starting its work from an advanced standpoint, as there now exists a general acceptance of national action dedicated to solving women's problems.
