May 29-30, 2010
The Egyptian Association for Community Participation Enhancement, coordinator of the coalition of CEDAW in Egypt, has organized within a project to Strengthen CEDAW Egyptian NGOs Coalition to enhance the use of International & Regional Mechanisms to Enforce Women’s Rights”, a Conference for two days on 29 and 30 May.
The conference's topics came from the most vital issues and priorities that emerged after writing a shadow report and presenting it to the United Nations CEDAW Committee last January.
On the first day three topics were tackled; (what is after the recommendations of the Geneva Committee - Women and judiciary - the political participation of women and the quota) and, on the second day there was a focus on the role of the legislature in the face of violence against women and the role of civil society and associations and Media programs in the face of all forms of violence against women.
On The first day, Dr. Ferkhunda Hassan, general secretary of the National Council for Women, talked about the perception of forms of cooperation between civil society representatives in the associations and the National Council for Women as a national mechanism to implement CEDAW and to improve the situation of women in Egypt.
Dr. Afaf Marei, coordinator of CEDAW in Egypt, spoke about the Role of NGOs in the process of writing the shadow report about the conditions of women in Egypt and also confirmed that there are enlightened Islamic researches which confirmed the equality of men and women upon divorce. Therefore, Article 16 does not contradict Islamic Sharia, which thus requires that Egypt must eliminate reservation on it, and review the rest of its constitutional reservations, she also presented the concluding observation of the CEDAW Committee to the Egyptian government, highlighting that there should be cooperation between government, NCW and civil society in order to implement the recommendations especially with the presence of alarming issues as sexual harassment, violence against women in the family, and amending the family laws..
Siham Negem, director of Women and Society Association, said that there are priorities for women's issues in Egypt, which had been presented to the CEDAW committee; these priorities are: violence against women, political participation and personal status Law.
On the second day , Tahany el Jabali Vice-President of the Supreme Constitutional Court and the first women judge , said that the right of women to become judges is a right that shouldn’t even be discussed and that mere discussion is a backward step, and that there is a difference between “ judiciary independence” and the “ independence with judiciary”,
Ashraf el Baroudi, deputy of Cairo Court of Appeal said that the right of women to work as a judge is settled , and added that the working conditions in the courts, are the same administrative conditions faced by judges being man or woman in need to reform and not because they are women they should be excluded but because they suffer from the same difficulties faced by male judges and that women's right in the judiciary is not just in their favor, but for the benefit of the whole of Egypt, he also added that we are behind in the overall context and that this issue is one of the highlights of our backwardness.
Khalid Ali as a lawyer and Director of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights added through a thorough research paper on women's right from reality and the perspective of the law and the historical references behind the notion of women working and the right to participate in all leading positions and all aspects of work, that the issue of women judges at the State Council is a falling symbol, where as the people who were presenting themselves all the time as symbols of freedom are now mere actors, and that the General Assembly of the State Council has no right to referendum on constitutional rights or to resolute on whether or not appoint women judges and therefore the resolution is contrary to law.
At the last meeting writer Amina Shafiq spoke about unconditional relativity list, and confirmed that this is the solution to women and Copts, then Amal Mahmoud, a CEDAW coalition member spoke about the need to secure the election process from violence and bullying and the presence of deterrent legal decisively in the face of gender-based violence in the process of election.
On the second day member of parliament Mr. Khalil Quetta, spoke on the role of the legislative authority of earlier history and even current attempts to curb violence against women and his attempts to obtain legislation to protect women from violence and abuse, such as the Domestic Violence Act, and still there is disruption to the law of punishing against the deprivation of women of their inheritance, although there are 95% of the women of Upper Egypt deprived of this right.
Dr. Magda Adly director of Nadim Center for Rehabilitation and treatment of victims of violence, said that the phenomenon of violence is wide spread between the different layers of the society and that it's the same reality of work correspondence to the battered victims in the levels of different cultures, yet according to social conditions, these women remain silent about the types of violence that occur to them to preserve the family's survival , and furthermore the migration of Egyptian males abroad transformed the Egyptian Women's body to loins, Ms. Aida Nour Eddin, Director of Women and Development Association in Alexandria, added from her work as a lawyer as well as the experience of her Assembly to receive victims of violence and support that there is a study by the National Council for Women in 2009 on a sample of 4800 women and men that says that 62% of women have been subjected to psychological violence and, saying that her association had received about 68 cases of violence through 2009.
At the last meeting of the Conference, writer, Fethiya Assal spoke about her experience in writing live stories from within the women's prison and how they find that they have been subjected to violence, and the right of the man since his childhood to educate his sister and the disaster that occurs if the mother discovered that she pregnant in girl and unlike in the case of pregnancy in a boy
Bothaina Kamel the Media Actor Added from her work in the program of the confession of night through the story of a man that the one who kills on honor crimes bases is not always convinced, and feels proud, but that the society pushes him for this role of championship and vengeance for his honor, yet he is who commits a major sin in the right of loved people and then suffers like such as the victim's killing , the writer Karima Kamal said that the media sometimes harms the reputation of women when they publish the name or image of woman whose husband have killed for honor and believes that it satisfies the conscience of the society. She added that people who work the Media are not far from the same culture of masculinity that does not believe in women's work and speak out and so few of them that believe in equality
Ashraf Riad Media Actor added from his experience in his morning live daily Naharak Saied program, that there were issues at which he was asked from viewers to speak about the right of children vision, adding that the situation in the media and channels is different for women because of her skill in this role. He also added another issue concerning violence against women which is the issue of passive smoking because there is consequences affecting the health of the mother who smokes passively from her husband without a law protecting her from that as other countries.
The Conference lasted for two days in the presence of a number of NGO representatives and other members of the Coalition of NGOs interested in women's issues and the media