Egyptian Woman's Day was celebrated at the highest level this year. Reem Leila reports Having rarely participated in a woman's rights event, President Hosni Mubarak yesterday addressed a conference held by the National Council for Women (NCW). The address marked the nation's celebration of Egyptian Woman's Day that coincided this year with the fifth conference of the NCW created in 2000 by a presidential decree to help promote woman's rights. "Today, women have an unmistakable opportunity to become full partners during this particularly crucial moment in our society," the president said at the closing session. The need to promote women's political participation ahead of the scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections this autumn was the focus of Mubarak's address, and that of the three-day event inaugurated by the NCW on Monday. Members of the NCW told Al-Ahram Weekly that while the president did not explicitly commit new governmental regulations to upgrade the participation of women in parliament and decision-making positions, his decision to address the conference as such was a good indication that he sees the need to enhance the presence of women on these fronts. "The current status of women's participation on the political front remains the least addressed aspect in the efforts dedicated to the empowerment of women," Mubarak said. "This is an unfair situation not just for women but for the entire society. This is not strictly a women's problem; it is a problem that concerns the entire society and that has to be addressed as such," he added. Participants in the conference say that during consultations preceding his speech, President Mubarak was responsive to demands made by senior members of the NCW -- that is chaired by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak -- to consider limited legislative amendments to allow women to assume a more effective political role. "He made no promises. He said that whatever proposals we want to present him must be consistent with the constitution and acceptable by social standards," commented one senior NCW member. She added, "However, as he indicated in his address the president seemed determined to give women a push, especially in the political arena." Promoting women's political participation was a key issue for the NCW conference that was held under the 2005-2015 plan of action for the empowerment of women. But as NCW Secretary-General Farkhonda Hassan noted, the political empowerment of women is linked to socio-economic development. Today, according to NCW monitoring mechanism, women still have a long way to go to attain adequate social empowerment. Despite intensive efforts exerted by the government and civil society, Farkhonda admitted, women and girls are still at a disadvantage in terms of access to education and adequate healthcare. The conference noted that the disturbing rates of illiteracy and school dropouts among women and girls remain a major problem. According to statistics reviewed by the conference, the latest figures of women's illiteracy, recorded in 2003, stand at an alarming 51 per cent. And as papers reviewed by the conference indicate, this high rate of female illiteracy correlates with early marriage and poor health conditions. A high illiteracy rate "limits women's accessibility" to formal labour markets, remunerated economic activities and political participation, noted Hoda Rashed, head of the NCWs education and scientific committee. Suez, Damietta and Al-Wadi Al-Gadeed have managed to eliminate female illiteracy. The NCW is hoping that by 2015 female illiteracy will be zero across the nation. Moreover, Rashed said that "learning goals must be extended beyond reading and writing skills" and will include IT awareness to facilitate education. The conference stated that the purpose of resolving still high maternal mortality rates, malnutrition and limited access to medical services will be better served if the campaign to reduce female illiteracy makes faster progress. According to Safaa El-Baz, head of the NCWs health committee, the NCW is determined to widen the scope of free services and adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation periods. There has been a significant decline in infant and child mortality rates, the conference noted. But it added that much more work needs to be done to reach out to the millions of women who are still handicapped by their own conditions and those imposed by society to access necessary healthcare for themselves and their children. Again, El-Baz said that the NCW is targeting 2015 as a potential date by which significant progress could be made in reducing mortality rates to no more than 12 out of every 1,000 infants and 25 for every 1,000 babies under the age of one. The NCW also addressed the disturbing signs of the "feminisation of poverty". According to Hussein Gezairi, World Health Organisation (WHO) regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, there is increasing evidence that Egypt needs to exert concerted efforts to combat this social dilemma that prohibits the nation from implementing the developmental goals of the millennium to which it is a signatory. These efforts, the NCW conference noted, will need to give special attention to the socio-economic problems of female heads of households which represent close to 30 per cent of all Egyptian families. On the social and economic fortunes of women, participants noted the ability of women to assume an adequate political role in line with the constitutional rights granted all citizens. Parallel to these efforts, Salwa Gomaa, a member of the NCWs legislative committee, said the NCW was adopting an ambitious plan to address the lack of political awareness among women. In this regard, the NCW agreed to step up its efforts to help women access identity cards as a pre-requisite for active electoral participation. The NCW is also considering possible legislative moves to secure a wider presence of women in the Egyptian parliament that should be elected later this year. "Today women's representation in the People's Assembly does not exceed 2.5 per cent, five per cent for the Shura Council and approximately one per cent for local councils," Gomaa said. The NCW has established a centre for political empowerment which is currently training 400 women to join the upcoming elections. "By election time the number of women we would have trained will be 800," Hassan said. At the end of three days of debates, the NCW promised to end the discrepancy between the political rights secured for Egyptian women by the constitution and the actual political performance of the vast majority of Egyptian women.
