CAIRO - Minister of Social Solidarity, Ghada Wali said that Egyptian government is pushing through new legislations to protect and empower women, including legislations prescribing stiffer penalties for female genital mutilation and heavily penalizing those who deprive women of their rightful share of inheritance. Wali pointed out that a new legislation has already come into force on doubling the resources of the Family Insurance Fund which has allocated a great deal of money in alimony to 262 thousand divorcees this year. This comes in consistency with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi's statements about Egyptian mothers that "she is the voice and conscience of the nation," al-Sisi said in a ceremony marking Egyptian Mother's Day yesterday. Wali stressed that women are the overriding concern of all the social protection's policies and programs, highlighting the program of Takaful Wa Karama (i.e. Solidarity and Dignity Program) which has provided conditional cash support to 1.5 million Egyptian women since its inception in March 2015 to cover over than 5630 villages. She added: "The Ministry of Social Solidarity has supported vulnerable women through the creation and development of care and reception centers for battered women as well as providing training resources for the centers' personnel." "Microloans worth more than 40 million Egyptian pounds have been made available to help increase the income of 20,000 working women in 444 villages in the light of a vision to push more women workforce. In this regard, the Ministry of Social Solidarity is working on developing more nurseries to enable more women to join the labor market while not worrying that their babies are left behind or not taken care of," Wali stated.
