CAIRO - After the January 25 revolt, many people have been calling for everything related to or carrying the name of former President Hosni Mubarak or his wife, like schools, libraries, etc, to be replaced or renamed. There have even been calls to abolish laws issued by the National Council for Women and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, both headed by Suzanne Mubarak, that concern women and Egyptian family. This causes concern about the future of women after the revolt. "Most of these laws are in society's interest; we shouldn't worry who was behind them, but make the best use of them," said Assistant to the Foreign Minister Naela Gabr. "We should build on what has been done," she added at a recent seminar entitled: 'The Egyptian Woman after the January 25 revolution'. Naela believes we should be committed to the existing legislation and decisions that respect and promote women's rights. “We should also be committed to the conventions and international instruments to which Egypt has acceded and which have become an integral part of national legislation, especially the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women [CEDAW],” she told a recent seminar in Cairo. “We should also activate the already existing national mechanisms like the NCW, NCCM and the National Council for Human Rights, as well as developing educational curricula, getting rid of anything they contain that's negative about women," she stressed. Egyptian women stood beside men in all anti-Mubarak demonstrations nationwide, raising placards, shouting slogans, helping the injured and distributing blankets and food. They also helped men secure Al Tahrir Square and frisk anyone who entered the iconic plaza. “After the revolt, they helped clean up the square,” said Hoda Badran, the Chairwoman of the Alliance of Arab Women, than NGO which organised the event. "Women have an important role to play in policy. The number of women ministers has fallen from three to one, while women played no part in the recent committee for constitutional amendments. This should raise the alarm about their future," she told the gathering. "Women and men struggled together in our time of need, so they should have the same rights and duties. Sidelining women after the revolution is entirely unacceptable.” Awatef Abdel-Rahman, a professor of journalism in Cairo University's Faculty of Mass Communications, thinks that "radical religious currents are partly to blame for the exclusion of women". "There is still the old negative image of women, preventing them from their basic rights like inheritance, as they are weaker. This is also to blame," she said. Awatef added that even the laws of the recently toppled regime "pander to upper-class and educated women, not ordinary Egyptian women, which is why these laws have failed". "Whenever I attend a meeting to discuss women's issues, I always find that the majority of the attendees are females, despite the fact that such issues are being discussed for the benefit of the whole of society ��" women and men. So we should change this idea that women's issues are just for them." Yasser el-Hawari, a member of the January 25 Revolution Youth Coalition, says that "women in every place in the world can do their work without any help from anyone". He said that the quota system in the recent parliamentary elections discriminated against women. "In those elections, women and quotas were manipulated to increase the number of the ruling party's seats in Parliament. Women didn't get their rights and many were prevented from running in the elections and being elected,” el-Hawari commented. In the parliamentary elections late last year, Egypt for the first time allocated 64 out of 508 parliamentary seats to be contested by women only. At first sight, it might seem that the idea was to boost women's profile in a male-dominated society, but really it was a cynical bid to bolster the ruling National Democratic Party, headed by ex-President Mubarak, as all 64 women were from the ruling party. "The laws must be equal for both women and men. In Midan Al Tahrir during the revolt, there was no discrimination against women. We are all Egyptians," el-Hawari added. Mervat Tallawi, a former minister of Social Solidarity, believes that the Government should focus more on social issues, as the past regime was more interested in the economy and inflation than social issues. "Mosques, churches and the media should together raise the public's awareness about women's rights," she said.
