In Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, women's rights are moving into the spotlight. Dina Ezzat reports Women's rights have been in focus in the Arab world for the past couple of weeks. In Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and, even Saudi Arabia, women have been debating their status in their societies, as well as ways to improve it. Some of these debates have been conducted at the upper levels of government, while others were merely the fodder of discussions among women who were following news of the official debate. "What do Saudi Arabian women want?" asked one Saudi Arabian woman who requested that her name be withheld. "God knows they want so much," she said, staring at herself at a mirror in a Cairo coffee shop. "This is exactly what I want," the 40- year-old said. "To be able to dress modestly without having to wear a veil, to sit in a coffee shop alone reading a book and having tea without being harassed by some alleged virtue police." The woman said she would also like to drive a car to do her shopping and travel freely without having to be escorted by a male relative. "But above all, I want to be able to have a job. Women in my country have some jobs, but not enough. People tend to think that we just want to take the veil off and drive our cars. This is true, but above all we want to have jobs, and a say in the affairs of our country." Hayat Samir a 26-year-old Egyptian woman, also said there was "so much that I want". Samir is a university graduate with a law degree who works as a cleaning lady. "Here I am with a law degree and I am cleaning bathrooms. Even if they are the bathrooms of a decent organisation, they are still bathrooms. If I were a man, I would have had a much better job as a sales assistant or a cashier in a store at least," she said. While men who have recently graduated from university are also taking jobs that they perceive as demeaning and unbecoming of their university degrees, many governmental bodies and non-governmental women's rights organisation would agree with Samir that there is an unmistakable bias against women in the labour market. However, as these organisations and bodies also admit, gender based discrimination is far from being confined to the job market. Samir said she was seeking not just a better job or an adequate salary, but a better life in general. It is these kinds of concerns that line the agenda of groups like the Egyptian National Council for Women (NCW), which is chaired by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak. According to the NCW's action plan, as well as that of many other women's rights groups, a better life for Egyptian women entails better access to education, health care, legal rights and social rights. In several speeches delivered at regional and international events last week, stressed that Egypt is committed, both at the governmental and non-governmental levels, to pursue women's rights. "In Egypt, we have accelerated our activities by building on initiatives and efforts that were already underway in promoting the quality of women's lives -- in rural areas, in urban areas, in the political as well as the socio-economic domain," she said during a 9 June speech at a UNESCO seminar on women and peace. "Many of the efforts are geared to responding to the specific priorities and needs of women." is particularly proud of efforts undertaken to make education more accessible to girls and to secure health care and legal rights for as many women as possible. She is also proud that women are assertively finding ways to be involved in politics on the home and regional fronts. Addressing the UNESCO audience, stressed that the past years have witnessed an acceleration in the involvement of women, from the grassroots to the national and international levels, in all aspects related to human development and security. She also underlined the fact that over the past few years, women's groups and organisations "have mushroomed" and are now "attending to various agendas, from accelerating literacy and better schooling for their children, to the provision of social services and access to schemes that would increase their incomes and allow them to operate their own business". Women, said , have the fortitude to not only earn their rights, but also to help make development and peace possible. The intense faith Egyptian and Arab women have in humanity and the values of equality and peace represent the real "strength" women have in helping them fulfil their rights and promote their countries' rights at the same time. "It has been said that women are the thread that link society from one generation to another. They are a little over 50 per cent of the world population and are responsible for the other 50 per cent that have been brought to this world," said a day later, during a speech at France's Sorbonne University. As such, she stressed, women should not be treated as visitors to planet earth since they "too own this great planet along with men". This longed-for dynamic was also being discussed last week at a two-day Arab League conference on Women in the Arab World: Partners in the community and on the world stage. The Third Annual Arab International Women's Forum brought together women from many Arab and non-Arab countries to debate the prospects of this partnership. "We have to face it. The report issued by the UN Development Programme on human development in the Arab world did specify that the status of women in our countries hamper our developmental efforts," said Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa. Speaking at the event's opening session, which was attended by , Moussa stressed that at the beginning of the new millennium "Arab women should not continue to be treated as an unattended cultural legacy with no contribution to society or as a point of weakness that Arab countries are often criticised for." Moussa acknowledged that in the Arab world today there are women ambassadors, ministers, judges and military and police officers. He also acknowledged that during the past couple of years, for the first time, an Arab woman, Algerian politician Louisa Hanoun, ran for the presidential elections, and that Lebanese Parliamentarian Naeila Mouawad would also soon be running for president in that country as well. The meeting's participants had more impressive facts and figures to share: there are five women on the Algerian cabinet and about 800 women judges who constitute about 50 per cent of the overall number of judges in Algeria; about 11 per cent of the members of the Moroccan parliament are women; in Syria, 10 per cent of the parliament's seats are held by women; Egypt has two women ministers, a woman judge and many women ambassadors. At an event organised by the Arab League late in April, Moussa awarded 10 women medals for their distinguished performance in many scientific, cultural and political fields on the regional and international fronts. Some of the women being recognised were from Arab countries with undeniable achievements in relation to women rights, such as Tunisia and Egypt, while others were from Gulf states where women's rights activists still have a long way to go. Moussa and many other conference participants noted that it would be naive to address the status of women in the Arab world from the limited perspective of these key jobholders. Many participants, even those who have an optimistic view of women's status in their countries, still felt that the facts and figures revealed by reports like the one issued by the UNDP in 2002 show how unfair the balance is when it comes to women's shares of illiteracy, legal discrimination, poor health care and coerced legal rights. This said, Moussa argued that, "women's issues are moving to centre-stage in the Arab world. The process might not be as rapid as some may wish, but it is happening." The Arab League secretary-general stressed that during their last summit, Arab leaders made a clear-cut commitment to undertake the necessary efforts to encourage women's empowerment in the Arab world. Although Moussa was right about the clear language concerning both women's rights, and women's indispensable role in advancing development, contained in many of the documents adopted by the Arab League, the text is one thing, its implementation something else altogether. In Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan this week, there was ample evidence of that problem. In Jordan, a fairly liberal society where Queen Rania is publicly championing the cause of women's rights, the parliament is still caught in debate over the right of married women to legally end their marriages irrespective of their husband's position on the matter. In Kuwait, a statement made by religious authorities arguing that Kuwaiti women should have the right to run for parliamentary elections has prompted unrestrained anger amongst Islamic hardliners who are not exactly being opposed by their government. And in Saudi Arabia, a three-day workshop on women's rights failed to adopt any serious measures to improve the status of Saudi women. Rather the opposite, reactionary clerics seized the opportunity to launch an aggressive attack against women's rights activists and to intimidate the Saudi government against taking any measures to improve women's status. "Nobody ever said that the change is going to happen overnight," said Wadouda Badran, secretary-general of the Arab Women Organisation. "At least we have the commitment of the governments that they want to work in this direction." Badran's organisation is in charge of making plans for the advancement of women's rights and women's roles in Arab countries. But as Bardan herself knows, only 13 of the Arab League's 22 member states have committed to participating in the organisation thus far.
