Women's rights are an indispensable component of development, says the National Democratic Party, Reem Leila reports Enhancing women's rights, says the NDP, is but one element of a comprehensive package of social reforms that includes freedom of speech and the right to vote. At the fifth annual NDP conference President Hosni Mubarak urged the government to pass new laws to improve women's status and to increase female representation in Egypt's 454- seat parliament. Updating Egypt's personal status law was, he said, high on the list of NDP priorities. Details of the proposals had been made public earlier, by Kamal El-Shazli, a senior NDP member, who told the conference that there should be at least two women MPs for each of the country's 29 governorates. This would mean a minimum of 58 women MPs in the People's Assembly. There are also plans to review whether a slate system should be introduced to boost the number of women in parliament. "This is only a suggestion which will be thoroughly discussed during the coming session of the People's Assembly which starts on 12 November," said El-Shazli. In the 2005 legislative elections only four women were elected to the People's Assembly though President Mubarak later appointed five more along with 13 members of the 264 seat Shura Council. In the 2002 local elections 774 women won seats on local government councils, 750 of them NDP candidates. Zeinab Radwan, a member of the NDP's influential Policies Committee, revealed that the party has already engaged in intensive internal discussions of the personal status law with the aim of restricting polygamy, cancelling divorce in absentia and granting married women more rights. The draft law will soon be ready to be presented for public discussion and any suggestions by women's associations will be considered for inclusion. "The draft covers all stages of marriage, including engagement, divorce and the rights of each party," said Radwan. Under the 1929 personal status law women can only file for divorce in cases involving physical or psychological abuse. Hoda Rashad, chairperson of the NDP's Women Committee, stresses that under the new draft law women will not be obliged to prove physical or psychological abuse, especially in cases involving polygamy. In 2000 the 1929 law was amended to incorporate Khulu', granting women the right to repudiate their marriages as long as they agreed to forego any financial claims. Predictably, some male politicians have predicted that the law will encourage women to leave their husbands en masse. "We can now expect women to go out to work and men stay at home waiting for their wives to return. People can also expect to see mustachioed wives with downtrodden men at their side pushing baby buggies," lamented MP Gamal Zahran. Such comments, says Radwan, underline the deep-seated fear of women's rights in a deeply conservative country. "This is not a law that will destroy the family but it might modify men's behaviour," she said. "Men in this country are not used to the idea that women have rights. They're used to the fact of their own power. This draft law is just a beginning -- it still does not guarantee women all their rights." The draft personal status law will regulate relations between both parties and its proponents argue that it is in full accordance with Islamic law. According to theologian Abu Hanifa, when an engaged couple separates the party that initiated the break up can claim all the wedding presents. Radwan points out that personal status and family courts currently adopt this practice which, she argues, mostly benefits men. Under the new draft, she says, wedding presents will henceforth be considered part of the dowry, and their value will be shared. The law will also cover absent husbands. Under present legislation a wife must wait four years before beginning legal proceedings to end her marriage in cases in which the whereabouts of the husband is unknown. "Many of the rights of both wife and children are lost because they have to wait so long to claim them," says Radwan. The draft will reduce the waiting period to one year, after which the marriage can be dissolved. "In cases where the husband subsequently reappears and the wife has already married another man the wife has full right to choose between either men and will not, as happens now, be forced to return to the first husband," explained Rashad.
