Egypt State Information Service

The Egyptian woman has occupied special status all over ages, and is an effective partner with the man in all walks of life. However, the past few years witnessed remarkable development of the woman status and role in the society.

The State exerted much efforts to promote the woman's position and empowerment politically, economically and socially and to change societal values and concepts that negatively affect her and activate her role on the regional and international level.

The Pharaonic civilization was one of the oldest civilizations that recorded the woman importance and her role in the society. Pharaohs were the first to elevate woman to the reins of power such as Queen "Merit Nept" who ruled Egypt in the latest era of the 1st Dynasty, Queen "Hoteb", Queen "Hatshpsut" who ruled Egypt more than 20 years, Queen "Nefertari" and "Cleopatra" who gained international literary interest.

When Islam prevailed in Egypt, it paid due attention to women, showed their rights and duties, elevated their position, and included them in all legislations. There were a lot of gracious women such as "Set el-Mulk" sister of "Al-Hakim bi-Amrillah" and "Shajarat ad-Durr" who established the Mameluke State and shared in the state policy-making. In the Modern era, when Mohamed Ali started establishing the modern state, special attention was paid to women and a call for improving their living conditions and establishing schools for girls had emerged, such as the "School of Midwives" in 1832. Rifa'a at-Tahtawi had called in his book: "The Honest Guide for Girls and Boys" for the girl education. At the same time, women supported the education issues, so Khedive Ismail's wife established the first school for girls in 1873; "El-Sieofia School" which had 238 girls after 6 months from its inauguration. In 1889, the most authentic school for girls was established "El-Sania" school aimed at preparing teachers. In addition, Princess "Fatma"; the daughter of Khedive Ismail donated a piece of land to establish the building of national university (Cairo University) that was inaugurated in 1908.

In 1908, Fatma Rashed issued the first magazine for women: "Women's Way". When the 1919 Revolution erupted, women expressed their national stance and the first feminist demonstration against the British occupation took place on March 16, 1919 which resulted in the first female martyr "Hamida Khalil". In 1920, "Central Wafd Committee for Women", which called for a total independence to Egypt wasformed and Hoda Sha'rawi was elected a president.

In 1942, Fatma Rashed established the first "Egyptian Feminist Political Party". The party programme called for achieving equality between women and men in social and political rights. It also called for the acceptance of women in all state's jobs.

As well, Doreya Shafiq established "Bint an-Nile Union" in 1949, which called for amending Dorreya Shafiq with the Egyptian star Faten Hmama.

laws in order to support woman's status in the society and give her social and political rights.

The 1952 Revolution is considered the beginning of a new era, during which the concept of women participation in all walks of life was entrenched. During this era, women gained their political, social, cultural and economic rights in accordance with the 1956 Constitution, including their rights to voting in elections and nomination in the political and legislative institutions.

In 1957, there were the People's Assembly elections where 5 women ran for the elections and they ended with 350 members including two women: Rawia Atya, and Amina Shoukeri. In 1962, the first female minister in the Egyptian government; Dr. "Hekmat Abu-Zeid" was appointed for the Ministry of Social Affairs. These rights were stated in Egypt's permanent Constitution of 1971 where Article (10) stipulated that the state shall guarantee the protection of motherhood and childhood. In addition, Article (11) stipulated that the state shall guarantee the proper coordination between the duties of woman towards the family and her work in the society considering her equal with man in all walks of life.

The period from 1981 up till now has witnessed fundamental and tangible changes that mainly aim to empower and develop women. So, such status has been supported on all levels and through concerted efforts of all bodies and ministries in addition to the establishment of special and distinguished institutional entity, namely, National Council for Women (NCW). As well, mechanisms for reform and development have been discussed through the conferences of NCW, Arab Women Organization and Suzanne Mubarak International Movement for Peace.

This day was chosen to be the Egyptian Women's Day according to the UN resolution that urges the member-states to celebrate women's day provided that the day should be related with an historic event of the country. Therefore, March 15 is the anniversary of the participation of the Egyptian women in the 1919 Revolution under the leadership of Mrs. Hoda Sha'rawi against the British occupation. After 4 years on the same day, Mrs. Hoda Sha'rawi called for another demonstration to establish the first Egyptian feminist union that aimed to improve women's educational level and ensure the social and political equality.

Men and women are equal before the Egyptian constitution and law, Labour Law and Personal Status Law. They have equal public rights and duties without discrimination due to race, ethnic origin, language, religion or creed. Women's rights are quoted in 5 groups of laws: (Civil Law, Penal Law, laws organizing political rights, Personal Status Law and Labour Law).

* Article 88 of the new Labour Law No. 12 of 2003 stipulated that all the provisions organized for operating workers shall be enforced on the working women without any discrimination as long as subject to the same work conditions. This includes many advantages.

* The law also repeals the forced return of the wife to the matrimonial domicile. In addition, Law No 4 of 2005 organizes the foster age for children (males and females) to be 15 years, then the judge makes the child free to choose to be with either parent.

Khole achieves the divorce for women where woman demands to divorce her husband because she does not want to live with him. The court does not make its judgment by Khole except after trying to make conciliation between the husband and the wife.

Divorce actions in case of the irregistered marriage (common-law marriage) are accepted in case they are documented. Thus, this law alleviated a great burden from thousands of Egyptian women married through the common-law then, their husbands abandoned them without divorce.

Issuing Law No. 10 of 2004 on establishing family courts responds to urgent practical necessities. Such courts are responsible for all cases that threaten the family entity and attempt to solve the problems between the litigating parties through conciliation. If they fail, the judiciary gives judgment in the case in a short time.

It ensures executing of the wife's, the divorced or the children's alimony under the supervision of Nasser Social Bank. Law No.11 of 2004 establishing a family insurance fund affiliated to Nasser Social Bank was issued. In accordance with the fund, the family commits to pay LE 50 on every marriage and divorce case in addition to LE 20 in case of birth. Such amounts are the fund resources in addition to the donations and the allocated part from the State's general budget for supporting the fund and the investment returns of its money. Such resources are used to execute the rulings on alimony.

Penal Law includes several provisions that achieve equality between women and men concerning criminal protection and criminal impeachment. It enhances the criminal protection for women, criminalizing acts of violating woman's decency. Article 291 allowing marriage of a kidnapped women to her kidnapper was repealed.

It aims to provide protection and care for women in certain circumstances such as searching the accused women through another female, delaying the implementation of putting the pregnant woman at her 6 months in jail till 2 months after delivery as well as stopping the death penalty for the pregnant till she reaches two months after delivery.

Statistics show that the woman represents about 48.8% of the total number of population. So, she plays a pivotal role in the development movement which is not in prior to that of man because she is considered one of production forces. It is important to achieve woman empowerment and support her participation in making and taking decisions.

The concept of "Empowerment" refers to everything that helps the de-velopment of woman's participation and makes her able to control her conditions and circumstances as well as contributing in building her society and achieving her economic, social and political security. Therefore, Egypt approved several covenants and agreements concerning enhancing women's contribution in public and political life and the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in addition to Egypt's participation in the international conferences on women.

It was established with the Presidential Decree No. 90 of 2000. It is concerned with promoting Egyptian women in the framework of preserving the national heri-tage and the Egyptian character. The Council's competences include proposing public policies in the fields of promoting women affairs, enabling them to perform their socio-economic role, mingling them in the comprehensive development pro-grammes, applying a national draft plan to promote women and solve their prob-lems and expressing opinions regards the draft laws and resolutions on women af-fairs before presenting them to the competent authorities.

It was established in 1988 and is concerned with setting developmental directives for the national plan, which are related to childhood and motherhood. Its competences include applying developmental directives for the national plan and women and child-related issues in the fields of social, family, health, educational, cultural, informational and social protection care, mobilizing public opinion concerning the children and women needs, problems and methods of solving them. They also include cooperating with the governmental and non-governmental organizations working in the fields of childhood and motherhood on the regional and international levels and encouraging voluntary action in this field.

1st Conference of Arab Women Organization

The establishing initiative of "Arab Woman's Organization" was declared during the feminist Arab summit that Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak called for in 2000. It is the first time the Arab women have united ranks to achieve the Arab woman solidarity, develop her awareness, build her capacity and coordinate her stances towards her issues and the national and international issues.

The Organization also aims to coordinate between the Arab countries efforts, policies and plans aiming to develop the Arab woman status and enhance her contribution in all fields. The forum, set up by the Organization, had provided opportunities to exchange various experiences. Moreover, it had issued some recommendations that were implemented, salient of which are as follows:

In 2007, Egypt had participated in the meeting of the Supreme Council of the Arab Women's Organization that concentrated on some important issues. Such issues include activating a charter for the Arab woman to improve her image and respond to the allegations against her, finding an Arab mechanism to release the Palestinian women captives, in addition to applying a mechanism to activate the means of letting the rest of the Arab countries join the Organization.

It was established in 1977 and is headed by Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak. The Association aims to build libraries as a cultural beacon in poor districts believing that the natural development of the society starts from the culture of child and family.

The Integrated Care Association (ICA) carried out many projects on promoting women including the development project of "Arab Al-Walda" district in Helwan, through which more than 1000 National ID cards and 75 birth certificates were issued. As well, two classes were opened to promote women's cultural and educational level and provide job opportunities for them through establishing small-size enterprises. In addition, ICA carried out the comprehensive development project in "Ain Helwan" which dedicates training courses to teach women some crafts to earn their living.

The Centre is an independent, non-governmental and non partisan agency. It is concerned with supporting the Egyptian woman in her struggle to gain her rights and achieve equality between men and women. Also, the Centre stands against all forms of discrimination against women.

It was established in 1987 and re-registered in 2002. It is the first feminist association that targets women heading their families in Egypt. Also, it is the first association that provides legal services for low-income women who live in popular and squat areas through a number of programmes, including the "small loans programme" which provides for women to gain small loans to make small size enterprises as well as the "services programme" for extracting all official papers for women and other programmes for health care and illiteracy.

It was established in 1995 to provide legal support for women and face any violation to their rights as an attempt to change the cultural heritage of women's rights. So, the Centre adopts many programmes to achieve its purposes including educational and illiteracy programmes in addition to the programme for supporting and developing the local communities through supporting the economic, social and cultural capabilities for the local community individuals, especially women and girls.

It is the first women initiative for peace in the Middle East. It seeks to increase women's participation in decision-making and peace as well as prevent conflicts, find solutions after conflicts and enhance the peace culture all over the world. The Movement was established by Mrs. Mubarak and launched in September, 2002 in Sharm el-Sheikh. It and depends on the efforts of its members and voluntary friends of peace-lovers in order to spread its objectives and achieve its message.

Also, it has close cooperation relations with NU organizations and its specialized agencies in addition to peace institutions. The Movement made an international alien aiming at mobilizing the international efforts and providing spiritual and material resources to face certain issues in the field of peace and security (women's role in supporting and protecting peace, combating women and children trafficking and combating violence against women). The Movement organized many activities on local, regional and international levels, salient of which are:

- Cultural Diversity Initiative in cooperation with embassies in Egypt, 2005 and completed in 2006.

- The Round Table that held in Athens by the businessmen community against trafficking trade, 2006.

The Institute is deemed a must according to the fact Mrs. Mubarak indicated, which says that the world today has many military academies. Such academies aim to draw up wars and defence strategies. They are also more than peace institutes that show the concepts and meanings of peace.

PSI was inaugurated on February 15-16, 2006 at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, where peace and security experts came from all over the world including the former Romanian President and two winners of Nobel prize; Mrs. Beti Williams and Mr. David Temple.

It represents the academic side of Mrs. Mubarak's International Movement of Women for Peace. It assists the Movement to support its activities through several partners with specialized institutes and institutions to make researches, studies and training programmes in all fields and issues related to peace.

Also, it plays an important role in training youth in the Arab region and provide them with the necessary skills to merge and participates in the political and social life and permanent peace. As well, it provides more roles for women in building peace.

On January 9, 2007, a round table on finding legal and scientific means in order to create a secure climate for civilians during the armed conflicts was held. The attendants agreed upon preparing educational programmes aiming at planting the peace culture in youth minds. Also, they agreed on launching an international campaign to prevent producing, storing, transporting and using cluster bombs through Women International Coalition of Women Defending Peace. Also another international campaign has been launched to ensure the arrival of human aids to civilian victims during armed conflicts.

The Movement, in cooperation with Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Euro Mediterranean Anna Lind for dialogue between cultures, organized a workshop on "Training Professional Librarians: Dialogue between Cultures, Peace, Diversity and Tolerance through the Library Service". It lasted for three days in Cairo, 14-16 January 2007.

On April 27, 2007, the Movement organized the marathon "Women-Thoon" where 8000 women and girls participated from 26 governorates all over the Republic. In September 2007, the Movement organized the "International Youth Forum" in Sharm el-Sheikh under the slogan "You Speak and We Listen".

This initiative came in from Mrs. Mubarak's follow-up with the International Youth Forum outcomes. It began in September 2007 and will last for two years till September 2009. The Initiative includes 7 main tracks, namely peace competitions on information technology, regional clubs for information technology, training youth on using information technology and youth camps for developing the electronic content for the sake of peace in addition to forming a youth working group in order to focus on the safe use and social effects of Internet and maximizing dialogue among cultures through providing remote information technology services.

It is considered an entrance to achieving social and political empowerment as well as it supports the women contribution to the development process. So, many programmes aiming to achieve woman economic security and to ensure an appropriate job and enough income for her basic needs have been adopted. In this context, the government has placed many policies and orientations including policies of activating women participation in small-size enterprises. Also, the National Council for Women has adopted many programmes and projects, salient of which are:

This project has succeeded to mobilize the civil society represented in NGOs participating in the governorates of the project. It began in Al-Fayyoum and Minya governorates and then extended to include most the governorates of Egypt. Through this project, the criteria of breadwinner women were chosen, namely widows, divorced women, wives of patients with incurable diseases, wives of disabled husbands, prisoners' wives and abandoned wives.

In cooperation with UN Developmental Programme (UNDP), the Project enables women to gain grants and small loans to invest in small-size enterprises. The project was carried out in cooperation with NGOs. The number of beneficiaries reached 600 in the 1st phase.

It aims to study rural women's conditions and needs so as to achieve her economic, social and political empowerment. The Programme includes training programmes for rural leaders in all governorates in order to develop skills and present rural women's problems and solutions.

It aims to promote and empower women socially, economically and politically. It is divided into three main components; research, awareness and training, and the small loans. Such components aim at fostering women through various activities, salient of which are: combating women's illiteracy, extracting birth certificates and IDs and offering small and micro loans for women to establish simple projects.

It aims to study the working woman's conditions and problems and propose the suitable solutions as well as remove obstacles. In this framework, equal opportunities units in 32 ministries were established in order to ensure that women have got their constitutional rights in work.

This project aims at raising women's participation in the labour market through offering technical support that is represented in training, offering information, technical and marketing consultations for women who want to establish small or medium-sized enterprises. This Centre includes:

- The Website of the small enterprises: It provides integrated database on everything related to defining small enterprises, incorporation and legal procedures, the financing and supporting bodies, investment opportunities and the principles of exportation.

- The Marketing Website: It aims at offering assistance in the fields of developing the small enterprises through introducing the state-of-the-arts technique in trade and electronic marketing. This Website is an electronic gate that screens the products of the Egyptian businesswomen for the whole world.

It aims to increase the Egyptian woman's participation in the parliamentary life and woman's voting in elections, and to enhance her occupation of the decision-making positions, in addition to constitutional and legislative provisions that enhance the woman's political status. The National Council for Women made the following:

The Woman's Political Qualification Centre provides many programmes for the woman political development in order to build female cadres capable of taking part in different political actions, as well as to spread and activate the culture of political participation among women. This is achieved through the programme of "Raising Woman Awareness of Political Rights", and through holding political forums all over Egypt in cooperation with NGOs.

Also, theoretical and practical training programmes to support women's capacity to participate in public and political life are provided.

This project aims to enhance the Egyptian women's role, support their parliamentary performance and make them acquainted with the woman's new issues, horizons and challenges of parliamentary action. In addition, it aims to exchange ideas and experiences through parliamentary dialogue forums which bring together parliamentary, political, intellectual and academic characters. About 300 meetings all over the governorates were held, and the number of female beneficiaries exceeded 40,000. This programme has been implemented in cooperation with UNDP and UN Development Fund.

On December 6, 2007, the NCW celebrated the Golden Jubilee of the Egyptian woman's entrance to the Parliament. It is worth mentioning that women seats in the Parliament had reached 162, including 22 through appointment and the rest through elections.

To achieve the social empowerment of women, many projects, initiatives and campaigns were adopted. They included the fields of health care, raising woman educational level and providing proper conditions for achieving her social and psychological stability to fulfill her doubled role; in the family as a mother and in the development process as a partner.

The Egyptian government ratified all the international documents related to providing education for all. So, there is a great increase in the number of female enrollment to universities.

- The government established the one-class schools and the girl-friendly schools to encourage girls who dropped out to make access to the official education. So, more than 500 schools were opened including 13,000 female students. In addition, the government established the special societal schools in the poor rural areas because the studying hours in these schools are flexible, so they provide practicing agricultural and household works for students.

- General Organization for Illiteracy Elimination and Adult Education has succeeded in lessening illiteracy among women. Also, there are programmes for professional training where all ministries are participating.

National Council for Women (NCW) is keen on merging the classes of combating illiteracy in all leading activities and in the small loans projects where they ask women to make access to these classes as a condition to enjoy the advantages of the limited credit. NCW is also keen through its branches in all governorates on facing the problem of the girls who dropped out by increasing the family awareness of girl education and eliminating the traditions that hinder woman promotion.

In addition, NCW participates in the programme of improving education in cooperation with World Bank, and European Union to combat drop-outs and to open the one-class schools.

This initiative of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood aims to eliminate gender gap in education to promote the quality of education, and to achieve equality and justice between males and females by 2015. This initiative also aims to educate about half a million girls at the age from 6 to 14.

Many projects and programmes were implemented to care about the pregnant, increase awareness of the risks of early marriage, encourage pre-marriage medical examination, combat female genital mutilation (FGM) and early discover breast cancer.

It aims to maximize the return in the field of family and reproductive health through adopting concepts and behaviours concerning the reproductive health. In addition, the project aims to prepare a study about the girls' early marriage, female genital mutilation and a study on Egyptian family properties. The number of beneficiaries from the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood in cooperation with the Egyptian Red Crescent reached about 280,000.

In the light of that Campaign, Egypt is still suffering from FGM high rates and the physical and psychological problems that women and their families suffer due to this practices. The National Council for Motherhood and Childhood has adopted an anti-FGM project. The project aims to form social and cultural climate against such practices that violate the Egyptian girls' rights.

To curb such practices, Minister of Health issued a decree in 2007 that prohibits FGM operations and it has become illegal and against the regulations of medical treatment work.

In addition, the Syndicate of Doctors warned its members to carry out such operations. Also, Egypt's Mufti and the members of Islamic Research Centre of Al-Azhar prohibited these operations. Mrs. Mubarak indicated that the campaign will be under the slogan of "the Beginning of the End".

It is considered one of the most iNational Campaign for the "Early Examination of Breast Cancer" Project mportant campaigns organized by the Ministry of Health and Population. It was declared by Mrs. Mubarak in October 2007. The Egyptian government has given the top priority to "Breast Cancer" in providing women health care because it causes death for women between the ages of 40 and 60.

The campaign aims to discover the disease early and provide treatment, and it will last for 5 years all over the Republic.

The NCW's efforts in the framework of enabling women socially are as follows:

The programme of the ID and the businessmen public plants and civil organizations had all participated in financing such a project. This was implemented through the Ministry of Social Affairs. This programme helped extract a number of 2 million IDs.

It is an official channel to present grievances concerning any form of discrimination against women. This office succeeded in solving many problems. During the period January- September 2007, the Offices received about 6,000 grievances, most of which are being solved.

Mass media bears a great burden in changing some cultural heritages and the negative stereotypes related to women, as well as it presents a balanced vision about her and underpins her success and role in the society.

NCW implemented a number of projects and programmes in the framework of cultural and information empowerment of women.

This programme aims to collect, document and develop the woman popular heritage either spiritually or materially to make use of the aesthetic values on the one hand and introduce the economic dimension on the other hand.

It was established by NCW to ensure transmitting the media message about the Egyptian women reality. The Unit aims to support the NCW efforts in changing the negative concepts about women and presenting the real positive vision through mass media. In addition, the unit aims to issue periodical reports to monitor the development of women's image and cooperates with media to urge decision-takers to adopt the recommendations issued in information monitoring reports in order to change and develop the information message about women.

Women have succeeded to occupy high posts in the State. They occupy every post except that of a governor.

- The Egyptian woman occupies the post of a minister. In the present government, there are two women ministers: Fayza abul Naga, Minister of International Cooperation and Aisha Abdel Hadi, Minister of Labour Force and Immigration.

- Women succeeded in joining the diplomatic corps and constituted about 20% of the field.

- 30 female judges were appointed in March 2007, and before that Mrs Tahani el-Gibali was nominated the first female judge, which is the highest judiciary rank in Egypt, in the Supreme Constitutional Court.

- Women have presided the administrative prosecution administration for two successive terms. Number of women in the State Case Authority reached 72.

- Law on the Selection of Mayors was amended, based on the fact that such law contradicts with the principle of equality, so that women were actually granted the right to assume the office of a mayor, which has already taken place in two Egyptian villages.

- Law on Nationality was amended by Law No.154 of 2004 and constitutional equality between the Egyptian mothers and fathers was realized through granting the Egyptian nationality to the children of the Egyptian woman married to a foreigner.

- Women participate in the political parties and in the membership of the People's Assembly and Shura Council.

- Women occupy the post of the chief of village and Sheikh el-Balad. The first woman to occupy the post of Sheikh el-Balad is Mrs Soheir Ismail in 1998. In October, 2007, Fatma Mostafa Madani was appointed head of a local unit in a village of Isna city, Aswan.

- Establishing equal opportunity units and/or units only for women in every ministry to be as women planning bases to play an important role in the development process as well as to coordinate between officials, ministries and the Council to ensure the implementation of the proposed plans.

- Holding the woman annual conference that plays an important role in affecting public opinion and giving priority to women issues.

- Adopting a number of projects and programmes in cooperation with some institutions to merge gender issues in development plans such as the project of "Economic Policies Responding to the Gender Needs", projects of "Measuring Gender Equality by using the Classified Statistics", the project of "Budgets Responding to the Needs of Men and Women".

The objectives of merging women in the 5th 5-year plan for socio-economic development (2002-2007) are briefed in the following:

Preparing the 2007-2012 plan on promoting women all over governorates has taken three years. It is the same age of the project of merging gender in development. It is a common project between the National Council for Women and UN Fund for Population. As well, it ensures the plan objectives and coordinates with the State's general objectives, policies and socio-economic development plans.

Governorates' plans include programmes in the fields of: health, education and training, poverty alleviation and economic empowerment, preserving environment social care, tourism, information technology and cultural awareness. Total investments of the plan reached LE 939.4 million with an annual average of LE 188 million. Al-Behira governorate ranked first in the proposed investments at a ratio of 12-13% of total investments, then North Sinai and Beni Sueif governorates at a ratio of 9.28% and 6.43% consecutively. Cairo ranked 15th, then Al Qalubia at a ratio of 2.87% and 2.66% and Giza is in the 11th rank at a ratio of 3.061%.

The local strategies of governorates were merged in a national strategy aiming at the economic empowerment of women. Its general objective is to draw up the required policies of women empowerment to participate in economic life in order to eliminate poverty. Its specified objectives are represented in giving priorities for the activities and works concerning women's work and changing the sectorial, professional and skill structure for women to make access to labour market.

Due to Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak sustainable efforts for promoting the Egyptian woman status, she was awarded many prizes in 2007:

- African Union's Economic , Social and Cultural Council Prize (AUESCC), due to her invaluable efforts for enhancing women's role in the society and the programmes and philosophy of Suzanne Mubarak International Movement of Women for Peace and a number of social programmes, February 2007.

- Science Medal of the year 2007, which is named after the famous German traveller "Nepur" from German-Arab Association in Berlin due to her efforts in spreading knowledge and science, February 2007.

- Sheikh Rashid Prize for Humanitarian Personality of the year 2006 due to her efforts in the humanitarian issues, woman child and those of special needs care, May 2007.

The greatest Greek medal "Grand Cross of the Order of the Phoenix" for her efforts in supporting women participation in economic , social and political sectors, and the social activities of Suzanne Mubarak International Movement of Women for Peace in addition to supporting dialogue, and enhancing youth role in the society, July 2007.