A young girl and her mother walk from their shanty district in Cairo along a main road. The girl carries a heavy back-pack full of schoolbooks. Her hair is pulled tightly back in a long braid. Her mother is obliterated by a black burqa. The girl represents the significant improvement Egypt has witnessed in closing the gender gap in education. Her mother represents all that can go wrong. This scene has become all too common in Cairo's streets, but on 8 March, it is particularly jarring. Today is International Women's Day, a global day designated to celebrate the many economic, political and social achievements of women. But it is also a day to remember the plight of many women across the globe--and the work that is yet to be achieved. But why worry about these two women, or gender issues at all for that matter, when we live in times of political uncertainty, human rights abuses, poverty, foreign occupation in our backyard, and growing Islamophobia? Perhaps because all of these strike at women first. Gender is the battleground of choice for fundamentalists. Women constitute 70 percent of the world's 1.3 billion people living under the poverty line. Women's collective security and opportunity is a reflection of civilization and, in many ways, our gateway to a better future. It should not be acceptable that after years of promoting the rights of women--debates ad naseum, millions of dollars funded on education, the passing of laws, the meeting of world leaders, the signing of conventions--women in 2010 still face oppression on a frightening, global scale. Fifteen years after the "groundbreaking Fourth World Conference on Women" in Beijing, it is estimated that over half a million women and girls die every year as a result of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Access to "decent" employment remains limited. Women are more likely to have low-paid, low-status and vulnerable jobs with limited or no access to basic rights. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, "Globally, up to six out of every ten women experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime." Sexual violence against women is a violation of human rights which has dire consequences. Among these are the increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, persistent gynecological problems, and psychological conditions, including fear of sex, loss of pleasure and severe trauma. A recent survey by the World Health Organization of 24,000 women in ten countries found that the prevalence of physical and/or sexual violence by a partner varied from 15 percent in urban Japan to 71 percent in rural Ethiopia, with most areas in the 30–60 percent range. The continued global nature of violence against women persists. According to the US-based National Organization for Women, over 600 women are raped or sexually assaulted in the US every day, while three women a day are murdered by an intimate partner. In Asia, crime rates, bride trafficking, sexual violence, and female suicide are all on the rise. "It is no exaggeration to call this gendercide," said a report in The Economist this week. "Women are missing in their millions--aborted, killed, neglected to death." The number put forward by an Indian economist in 1990 was 100 million and is undoubtedly higher today. A recent European Union study said that every year an estimated 5000 women are murdered by family members in the name of honor worldwide. Egypt remains an African country with one of the highest rate of female genital mutilation. A survey of Egypt's youth by the Population Council published last month found that 82 percent of young Egyptian women have undergone forced genital mutilation. A report on women's rights released last week by Freedom House said, "Violence against women is a serious problem in Egypt, and no law specifically prohibits domestic abuse." Honor killings continue to take place here. The latest statistics on the phenomenon are from 1995, and these estimated that 52 of 819 reported murders were honor killings. "Due to the penal code's leniency toward men who commit honor killings, judges have often sentenced such individuals to as little as six months in prison," reported Freedom House. A recent study showed that close to 83 percent of Egyptian women--including those who are fully veiled-- face harassment on the street. And while a sector of Egyptian women now battle for their gender's right to attain positions in all levels of the judiciary, basic rights such as freedom of movement, maternal custody, inheritance rights, access to work and political office, and equal opportunities all remain contentious. So while the intellectuals and political activists continue to debate whether wearing the burqa is a form of self-expression or annihilation, the reality of the two females walking out from their poor neighborhood and onto that crowded Cairo street remains dire. And we should care.
