The National Council for Women celebrated 50 years of women in parliament. Reem Leila attended Egyptian women have played a significant and pivotal role in parliament and their efforts were crowned during celebrations on 5 December marking 50 years of female politicians under the dome. The event was headed by the National Council for Women (NCW) Chairperson Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, and attended by several senior officials including People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour, Shura Council Speaker Safwat El-Sherif, Minister of State for Shura Council Affairs Mufid Shehab and NCW Secretary- General Farkhonda Hassan. Also present were some 125 veteran and freshman female members of the parliament. In 1952, women took to the streets to call for their right to be elected to parliament, with 14 female activists going on a hunger strike to protest against the exclusion of women from the preparatory stage for the 1956 constitution. Finally, the 1956 Constitution acknowledged the long struggle by women and for the first time provided them with equal political rights. In 1957, six Egyptian women ran for parliamentary elections for the first time, and after intense competition two of them won seats. In fact, the 1957 elections gave the Arab world its first female parliamentarian, namely Rawya Atteya. Although the 1956 constitution recognised women's equal political rights, in deference to Egyptian culture and traditions it did not make their enrolment in electoral registers mandatory, as it was for men. It left enrolment optional for those who wished to exercise their political rights. According to Mrs Mubarak, women in Egypt have struggled to acquire equal political rights in order to participate in formulating national policies and in lawmaking, through election to legislative councils or merely through voting. "This participation at the grassroots and policy- making levels has enabled them to influence the development process, and to ensure that women's problems are addressed, given priority and resolved," she revealed. In 1957, the regime espoused a socialist ideology and tried to encourage women's participation in all administrative and political positions. But their participation in legislative councils, whether as voters or candidates, was not proportional to their representation in society since they constituted slightly less than 50 per cent of the population. Mrs Mubarak argued that this could be attributed in general to the political environment, which does not promote political participation for both men and women equally. This is reflected in the so- called "silent majority", as well as the institutional weaknesses of political parties and civil society organisations. The Egyptian woman, basically, has not accumulated sufficient resources or experience to compete with the Egyptian man -- who was occupied with parliamentary life since 1924. "Women nowadays are witnessing an era that enables them further chances to serve their society, adopts their rights to education, work and participation, and urges their positive existence in various political, economic and social fields," added Mrs Mubarak. In the past few years, Egyptian women have achieved many gains in various pivotal issues such as education, health, legislations, in addition to assuming leading posts, economic empowerment and entering elections. Egypt had acceded to international agreements and conventions which aim at enhancing women's participation in public and political life. "The establishment of the NCW pushed forward women issues, reflected the country's care for women, in addition to boosting her economic, social and political situations," noted Mrs Mubarak. "Today, while reviewing all these efforts, we feel proud and happy over the immense gains of the Egyptian woman. We have succeeded in making the community with all its segments come to discuss women issues." The struggle movement of Egyptian women in the modern times is a reflection of a unique Egyptian civilisation peculiarity, in which the woman made a link between her fight for asserting her rights and the issues of her home and its development. According to Hassan, the struggle of Egyptian woman continues as she scores more gains in education, economic and political activism. Females have also joined new work fields and occupied leading positions such as cabinet minister, parliament member (such as former MP Fayda Kamel who served 34 years in the parliament), ambassador, president of a university, businesswoman and most recently a judge. Hassan stated that while female MPs accounted for a meagre 5.7 per cent of seats in the 1957 parliament, this percentage gradually increased to reach a peak in 1987 with 18 seats occupied by women. Of these, 14 were elected and the rest appointed by the president. In 1990, the number of female members dropped to 10, of whom seven were elected and three appointed. In 1995, five female members were elected and four appointed. The year 2000 looked better since seven women were elected to office and four appointed, putting female membership of parliament at 2.4 per cent. It should be noted that some qualitative and quantitative progress was achieved in the 2000 elections; while 90 female candidates ran for elections in 1995, 121 women contested the 2000 elections. Out of the seven elected members in 2000, three female candidates held seats from Upper Egypt, "an environment, which is recognised to be more conservative," Hassan pointed out. According to the latest statistics released by the NCW, female members in the Shura Council in 1996 increased to 5.7 per cent as compared to 3.3 per cent in 1980. This is fundamentally due to an increase in the number of female members appointed by President Hosni Mubarak. "It should be noted that women's participation in legislative councils has been qualitatively more important than their quantitative representation," added the NCW secretary-general. Sorour stated that women serve as his deputies as well as chairs and co-chairs of parliamentary committees, forming more than five per cent of committee chairpersons, according to recent studies. In the Shura Council, women have also chaired or co-chaired committees, and their participation in such committees exceeds 22 per cent. The political leadership, in turn, has responded to the demands by spearheading several milestone legislations benefiting woman and society as a whole. These include simplifying the personal status law, creating family courts law ands amending the citizenship law to serve the interests of Egyptian mothers. "With the achievements at hand, we still have to work to confront more challenges because the political participation of woman has yet to reach higher marks," concluded Mrs Mubarak.
