CAIRO: Out of 134 countries analyzed and ranked for the 2010 Gender Gap Report, Egypt ranked 125 overall with a score of 58.9 percent. The recently released report by the Gender Gap Forum was prefaced with the statement: “Never before has there been such momentum around the issue of gender parity on the global stage.” The report describes the strides taken in the empowerment of women, pointing out the numerous multinational companies that have aligned their core elements to provide support and opportunities for women in their communities as well as the UN's creation of a new body for gender equality. Women are beginning to comprise more than half of all university graduates in most of the developed world, and some countries have even introduced legislation that mandates women's participation in various organizations and events. The report is based on four categories: economic participation and opportunity, health and survival, educational attainment, and political empowerment. “I believe the report accurately ranks Egypt, but I think people need to look behind the statistics and see something a little deeper, such as the various factors,” says Rebecca Chiao, an independent consultant on women's rights and a founder of HarrassMap, a system recently introduced in Egypt for reporting incidences of sexual harassment via SMS messaging. In the economic participation and opportunity category, Egypt ranked 121 with a score of 45.3 percent and ranked 110 in educational attainment with a score of 89.8. Chiao commented on the discrimination women face in the work force as well as in the educational sector. She notes that there are social norms for jobs women should hold, such as teachers and pharmacists, and if they stray into other fields, such as engineering, it could result in hardship for them, including harassment. In the job market, Chiao said that women don't have the full access that men do and are often facing difficulties with their work, such as receiving short-term contracts and variation of benefits received, if at all. The category in which Egypt fared best was health and survival, ranked 52 with a score of 97.6 percent. Egypt's worst performance, ranked at 125 out of 134 with a score of 3.1 percent, was in the political empowerment category. “There are some appointed women in political positions, but very few elected, which is why our political empowerment score was so low,” says Chiao. “There is not just one category that is the biggest problem for this country, all the issues are linked.” The report stated that while Egypt moved up one spot from the previous year, it still continues to be one of the lowest performing countries from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in educational attainment. “In recent years, there have been more talks than before concerning women empowerment and the opened dialogue has helped the change seen thus far,” says Chiao. “I am hopeful there will continue to be improvements, especially if the activists, NGOs and all the other actors rediscover the positive social values of this country and use that to help bridge the gender gap.” Overall in the Middle East, Israel, despite its ranking having fallen seven places since 2009, gained the top spot in the MENA region, ranking at. 52. The United Arab Emirates (103) has garnered the top spot among the Arab countries, followed closely by Kuwait (105), Tunisia (107), and Bahrain (110). According to the report, the UAE has shown great strides in improving its literacy rate and education enrollment, as well as in the proportion of women holding ministerial positions. Rounding out the bottom half of the MENA region is Oman (122), Syria (124), Morocco (127), Saudi Arabia (129), and Yemen (134). In the last five years, Saudi Arabia's performance has put it at one of the highest climbers in terms of improvement. Even so, Saudi Arabia is currently the lowest ranking country in the region in terms of political empowerment; it obtained the lowest possible score for this category, which is zero. Yemen occupied the last place spot in the MENA region — and overall — out of the 134 countries. According to the report, “Yemen is the only country in the world to have closed less than 50 percent of its gender gap, and it deteriorates further this year relative to its own performance in 2008.” The top spots have been consistently held by the four Nordic countries of Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden. These countries continue their reign in being the most progressive countries in terms of the empowerment of women. The United States entered the top 20 nations for the first time, leaping in the rankings from 31st place last year to 19th this year. This significant jump was based on very high levels of literacy for both women and men and very high levels of women in primary, secondary and higher education, with the number of women enrolled in colleges and universities exceeding that of men. “Low gender gaps are directly correlated with high economic competitiveness,” Klaus Schwab, the forum's founder and executive chairman, said in a statement. “Women and girls must be treated equally if a country is to grow and prosper. “We still need a true gender equality revolution, not only to mobilize a major pool of talent both in terms of volume and quality, but also to create a more compassionate value system within all our institutions,” Schwab added. Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University and co-author of the report, said that the current data shows 96 percent of health gaps and 93 percent of education gaps have been closed in the 134 countries, “and yet, only 60 percent of economic participation gaps have been closed.” The other co-author of the report and head of the forum's women leaders and gender parity program, Saadia Zahidi, said that five years-worth data covering 114 of the 134 countries shows that 86 percent have narrowed their gender gaps. On the flipside, 14 percent have increased those gaps. –Additional reporting by AP
