CAIRO – Women will be excluded in a planned governors' reshuffle, the Local Development Minister, Mohamed Ahmed Attiya, said Saturday. In statements to the press, Attiya blamed the exclusion of women on the current security void. Female governors would not be able to go to the streets to address problems in their governorates, at least in the current stage, Attiya said. He said the reshuffle will be announced this week. The Government chose governors who have people's support, can satisfy their demands and will make quick decisions, he said. Governors will have a difficult mission, Attiya said, adding that some governors have refused to stay in their positions. Many women have complained that they are again being pushed aside in favour of the male politicians after the January 25 revolution. There are no women on the constitutional committee; there were no women among the ten opposition leaders chosen to “negotiate” with the Government during the revolution. Feminists, dismayed that the revolution is failing to advance their cause, are trying to rally disparate women's groups to defend women's rights from perceived threats from resurgent Islamists and other conservatives. Campaigners say the women face some of the harshest treatment in the world: domestic violence, harassment and discrimination at work and in the law. According to the World Economic Forum's 2010 Global Gender Gap Index, which evaluates progress towards women's equality, Egypt ranks 125th out of 134 countries. Last month, activists published a Women's Charter signed by half a million Egyptians demanding a new constitution that entrenches gender equality, an end to sexual harassment and a minimum quota for women in parliament and the cabinet. For now, only one woman is a fully fledged minister in the interim administration. Alarmed that the ex-regime's overthrow has left Islamists free to vie for power, women are forming new advocacy networks and feminists such as Hoda Badran, Mervat Telawi and Saadawi are trying to unite women to defend their rights. Women played their part in the 18-day popular uprising, occupying Cairo's central Tahrir Square day and night and treating the wounded, when police fired on protesters. Many complained of being sexually molested by pro-Mubarak thugs. Now Salafists, followers of a literal interpretation of Islamic texts, are demanding the Government reverse a reform passed in 2000 that grants women a divorce, if their families return the dowry, give up property rights and provide eyewitness proof of physical abuse by the husband. The women's union aims to push far beyond the 2000 law by eliminating the conditions for divorce and bringing Egyptian women's divorce rights in line with those in the West.
