Egypt State Information Service

Egyptian Women have proceeded in a long march on the way of liberation and development. At the time of the Pharaonic era the importance of ancient Egyptian civilization is recognized due to its values and messages that cover all walks of life. Salient of these human values is acknowledging the importance of women's role in society as being men's partners in religious and mundane life. Women status approached sanctity: Wisdom goddess is in a shape of a woman and goddess Isis is a symbol of loyalty and sincerity. Besides, women have assumed political offices. Hetchepsuit ruled Egypt from 1479 to 1457 B.C. Similarly, Nefertary was Ekhnaton's partner in ruling as well as calling for monotheism.

Throughout the Pharaonic civilization, a number of great queens appeared; such as Nefertiti and Cleopatra. Moreover, the Pharaonic civilization established the first legislations and laws specifying women's role. Queen Cleopatra

In 20A.H., when Islam has prevailed in Egypt, it has, through its venerable Sharia, organized the Muslim women's status, addressed them as equals to men, acknowledged their right in education, and permitted their work so as to play an effective role in society.

In modern era, Muhammad Ali; the founder of modern Egypt, paid attention to women. He established schools for girls. The call for developing women and improving their status was first made by Gamal el-deen el-Afghani and Muhammad Abdo, to be followed by Qasem Ameen through his two books: Emancipation of Women and New Woman. Besides, women expressed their national awareness and positive participation in 1919 Revolution, when they took part in demonstrations that resulted in the first two female martyrs. During that perod, the Egyptian Fiminist Union was established by Hoda Sha'rawi. Similarly, a number of political parties adopting women issues were established: the first of them; i.e. the Egyptian Feminist Party, was established in 1942. The Egyptian modern history abounds with names of great women such as Nabawia Moussa, Safia Zaghloul, Siza Nabrawi, and other pioneers of the Feminist Movement.

Then comes 1952 Revolution, which is considered a beginning of a new era during which the concept of women participation in all walks of life has been entrenched. During this era, women have gained their political rights in accordance with 1956 constitution. These rights have been confirmed by Egypt's permanent constitution of 1971.

Acknowledging women's status, the State proceeds in enhancing such status on all levels through combining the efforts of all institutions and ministries, establishing a distinguished institutional entity; i.e. the National Council for Women, nominating the first Egyptian female judge, setting reform and development mechanisms via the five conferences of the National Council for Women and proceeding to establish Arab women organization and Suzanne Mubarak's International Peace Movement.

Number of females in the Egyptian society amount to 34.18 million, accounting for 48.83 percent of total population that reach 70 million according to January 2005 statistics. Hence, women's participation assumes importance as having an unrivalled power. During the past years, Egypt has exerted great efforts for enhancing women's status and empowering them.

In Egypt, men and women are equals before law and constitution. They have the same rights and duties without discrimination because of gender, origin, language or religion. Women status has been organized in five laws: Civil Law, Penal Law, Labour Law, Personal Status Law and the laws on political rights. The Egyptian women have gained several legislative and legal laws ; salient of them are the following :

- Assuming the office of a judge : The Supreme Constitutional Court has nominated Mrs. Tahani el- Gebali as the first female judge which is the highest judiciary rank in Egypt. In addition to that, women chaired the administrative prosecution for two successive terms. It is worth mentioning that number of women in the administrative prosecution reached 436 and that, for the first time, a number of female justices took part in supervising constituencies in the latest people's Assembly and Shura Council elections.

- Establishing a family insurance system under supervision of Nasser Social Bank. Family courts have started operation in October 2004 aiming to protect the rights of women and children.

- Amending law on nationalities by law no. 154 of 2004 and realizing constitutional equality between the Egyptian mothers and fathers through granting the Egyptian nationality to the children of the Egyptian women married to foreigners.

Education is one of the most important means for empowering women through teaching them knowledge and skills necessary for effective participation in development process. Illiteracy among women is being dealt with through new mechanism for girl education. These mechanisms are called societal education. They comprise one-class schools, society schools, and small schools. Besides, girl education opportunities in various education stages witnessed a noticeable increase.

Statistics show a decrease in female drop-out rates in primary education. The recent period witnessed narrowing the qualitative gap between males and females, increasing percentage of females enrolled in university education which reaches 49 percent of total number in 2004/05, developing curricula , improving women's representation in them and providing health and social care during various educational stages.

Women are considered a national power that affects society. In order to activate women's role in comprehensive development, establishing several facilities to pay attention to women's interests in Egypt became inevitable.

The establishment of the National Council for Women in 2000 is considered an essential and effective step on the way of development as well as women's support. The establishment of the National Council for Women came after establishing the national committee for women in 1993, a number of regional committees on women in governorates and a number of administrations and centres concerned with women established in some ministries, governmental bodies, research institutions and the Social Fund for Development.

It was established under the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood to enhance women's role in society, study problems facing women and finding solutions for them, hold conferences and cooperate with Egyptian, regional and international institutions concerned with women's issues.

It was established in accordance with presidential decree No. 90 of 2000. It is considered a turning point in the history of women and the Egyptian society and an important step on the right way for women development.

The council is concerned with proposing the general policy of the society and its constitutional institutions regarding women's affairs development as well as enabling women to play their economic and social role, merging women's efforts in comprehensive development programms and drawing a national plan for developing women and solving problems that face them. Besides, the council represents women in gatherings and institutions concerned with women affairs, as well as in conferences and seminars it helds.

The First Conference: It was held in March 2000 under the title, (Egypt's Rise: Women, Citizenship and Development). It focused on three main pivots: women and development, women and cultural rise and women and public and political lives).

The Second Conference: It was held in 2001 and entitled (Egyptian Women and National Plan (2002-07). It discussed the main outlines for incorporating women into the national plan.

The Third Conference: It was held in 2002 in Menya governorate, under the title (Women and Society Modernization). The conference tackled all aspects of modernization as well as activating women's role.

In March 2003, NCW held fora in all its branches in governorates, on development and women's role. This contributed to forming a realistic database regarding women's status in governorates and helped in drawing up an action plan stemming from women's needs regardless of their position.

The Fourth Conference: It was held in March 2004, entitled (Egyptian women and achieving the third Millennium's objectives). The objectives were set by the United Nations and partly formulated by Egypt. They tackled alleviating poverty and hunger, realizing basic and comprehensive education, reducing infant mortality rate, improving productive health level, fighting diseases, preserving the natural resources and developing world partnership for development.

The Fifth Conference: It was held in March 2005 under the title (Development Based on Participation). It aimed to create a clear vision that enables both the international and Egyptian societies to be acquainted with the efforts exerted in Egypt for enabling Egyptian women to participate in development.

The Council was established by virtue of presidential decree No.54 of 1988; amended by decree No. 273 of 1989. It is concerned with setting developmental directives for the national plan related to childhood and motherhood in the fields of social, family, health, educational, cultural media care. It is only concerned with mobilizing public opinion concerning childhood and motherhood needs, problems and means for solving them. Moreover, it cooperates with governmental and non-governmental organizations working in the field of childhood and motherhood on regional and international levels. Examples of these organizations are UNICEF, World Health Organization (WHO) and children's international centre in France. The council encourages voluntary work in this field. Salient achievements are:

It is considered one of the new basic facilities that provide a political addition for women and a legal support for their rights and their march forward. The council's board comprises 6 women, which indicates the importance of women's participation with men for achieving the aspired goals, the national acknowledgment of the importance of women's role and the availability of efficient female leaders in the field of human rights.

President Mubarak called on the Egyptian women to enter politics without fear or hesitation. In spite of the exerted efforts for enhancing women's political role, the Egyptian women's participation in the political and parliamentary life is still limited. However, number of enrolled women in election rolls has doubled more than twice during the period from 1975-1986.

It rose from 1.6 million to 3.6 million. During the period from 1986-2000, the number has doubled two folds and a half, as the number of enrolled women reached 8.8 million in 2000. The percentage of the enrolled women compared to the total enrolled number has doubled twice during the period (1975-2003). It rose from 16% to 35%.

The National Council for Women has established this centre to contribute to building female cadres cable of taking part in different elections, whether legislative or local ones, as well as to spread and activate the culture of participation among women.

In addition to these achievements, the government adopts a number of policies that aim at facing all obstacles that hinder women's active participation in political life. Salient of these policies is modernizing the management of the election process.

Number of women enrolled in vocational syndicates rose to 41,313 in 2001. Journalists syndicate witnessed the highest percentage of women's participation, by 48%. Beside, the percentage of women assuming high offices rose from 7% in 1988 to 23.5% in 2003.

The State exerts due efforts to realize women's economic empowerment, particularly for the rural women and those who sustain their families. The state also proceeds to raise women's competitive ability on labour market within market economics, specialization, and globalization and to decrease females, unemployment rate. Statistics show that females represent 22.6% of total work force in 2004.

In 2003, females' contribution to the economic activities reached 13.3%, compared to 44.9% of males. As for labour market, female employment represents 19% of total number of workers with 3.5 million in 2003. The majority of female workers is available in rural areas, accounting for 57% of total female workers, compared to 43% in urban areas. The agricultural sector is the most accommodating sector for the female workers.

Statistics of 2003 show that women's participation in governmental sector represents about 25%, private sector 14% and public enterprises and public sector 12%. Concerning training, about 50,000 female workers are being trained annually.

In Egypt, women's health condition greatly improved through improving health services quality and facilitating women's benefit from them, particularly in the deprived rural areas, Upper Egypt and squatter areas. Female mortality rate has decreased and life expectancy at birth rose to 72.8 in 2004. Besides, mothers mortality rate because of pregnancy and delivery has decreased.

As the State pays attention to overpopulation problem, preventing the rapid increase in birth rates and increasing contraceptives usage rates have acquired great importance. In 2004 number of family planning centres reached about 5.7,000 centres all over the country.

The call for the importance of mass media in dealing with women's issue resulted from the social responsibility and the enlightening role of these media. So, an informational policy has been formulated to develop the information vision concerning women's issues and the informational discourse that aim to change the society's culture that negatively affect women's status, put an end to discrimination according to gender and to realize opportunity equality.

In recent years, programmes directed to women as well as their transmission hours increased. Moreover, the State Information Service plays an important role for enhancing family planning issue.

On the level of Radio and Television Union, during the period 1982-2003, the percentage of female workers in Radio Sector rose from 45.3% to 52.1%, in TV. sector from 37.6% to 45.1%, in broadcast engineering sector from 12.9% to 17.8% and in the economic sector from 36.1% to 44.2%. As for higher administration posts in the union, women occupy 52%.

Integrated Care Association, the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights, Women's Development Association, the Egyptian Women's Issues Center and the Institutions Forum for Women Development.

It is one of the most important achievements of the National Council for Women on the regional level. The Egyptian Women's performance has surpassed the borders and proceeded towards modernizing thought and mobilizing capabilities on the Arab level in general. The establishment of the Arab Women Organization signifies the necessity of facing challenges by new means.

The National Council for Women has coordinated and organized its efforts along with those of the Arab countries, leading to the establishment of Arab Women Organization under the Arab League according to the recommendations of Arab Women Summit held in November 2000 in response to Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak's call. The Organization aims at unifying and coordinating Arab women's efforts on regional and international levels. The Cairo – based organization comprises 12 Arab countries.

Suzanne Mubarak's Women Movement for Peace was launched in September 2002 in Sharm el-Sheikh. The movement aims at mobilizing women's creative energies to make them more effective in peace making. This would be achieved through establishing an organization that becomes the restorum through which their voices would be heared. Besides, it would create a firm place for women in the dialogues concerned with peace and social security. Moreover, it would help women to work with men to achieve profound and lasting results based on social justice, equality and human rights, along with the commitment to collective work for making change and enhancing the influence of women's organizations working for peace all over the world. It is worth mentioning that the movement is the first women international initiative for peace in the Middle East.