http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/978/fe2.htm
24 - 30 December 2009
Issue No. 978
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
Networking for a purpose
At a recent conference on women's rights in the Arab world, Ahmed Abu Ghazala
discovers that reforming the personal status law is the main challenge for
Egyptian women's groups in the coming year
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In order to enhance the performance of the women rights' organisations in Egypt
and the Arab world, a three-day conference was organised by German Technical
Cooperation (GTZ) and the Network of Women's Rights Organisations (NWRO) in
Cairo last week. The conference discussed concepts, contexts and challenges for
collective work by women rights' organisations in the region.
Roland Steurer, director of GTZ Egypt, said that the conference was an
Egyptian-German initiative in the context of GTZ's work on promoting gender
equality. "We hope to receive larger support from the German government for our
activities, and we will conduct a dialogue with the officials next June to have
that aid," she said at the inauguration of the conference.
Women's rights' activities have existed in Egypt and the Arab world outside the
state system through philanthropic activities since at least the early 1900s,
according to Margot Badran, a senior fellow at Georgetown University in the US.
She listed the role of early 20th-century activists like Malak Nasef and noted
that feminist activists in the Arab world had been developing networking skills
over a long period.
Today, "new challenges require using the Internet as a means of boosting
collective work between organisations in order to encourage further results,"
said Badran, though the use of the Internet in this role was also questioned by
Farida El-Nakkash, a journalist and NWRO member, who told the audience at the
conference that the Internet was currently only used by elites in the Arab
world.
"Women in the Arab world are facing various significant problems, including the
patriarchal system that places women in a subordinate class, the aggressive
capitalism that has spread throughout the region in recent years, and the rise
of Islamic fundamentalism in Arab societies," said El-Nakkash.
However, Yoginder Sikand, a professor at the National Law School in India, said
that in his country certain interpretations of Islam were not a source of
concern for women. Instead, Indian women were being held back by social,
cultural and political issues, he said. Muslim women in India wanted to
preserve and protect their Islamic identity, he added.
Later in the conference, Ebba Augustin, principal consultant for the GTZ
project, presented framework requirements for networking women's organisations
in the region. These included the statement of clear and concise goals,
locating points of strength and weakness, resilience, a strong secretarial
system, and the ability to be flexible.
Calls for associating organisations other than feminist groups were made,
including organisations from the private sector, media workers and experts from
other fields. "We have to include other social interests to achieve authentic
results; otherwise, we will just maintain existing strengths," said Assma
Kader, a representative of the Women's Learning Partnership.
The conference also raised the importance of learning from successful models of
networking, with Afaf Marei, a representative of CEDAW (Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women) in Egypt, presenting previous
achievements in various fields.
These included reforming the nationality law by granting nationality to those
who have an Egyptian mother, reforming employment law, raising awareness of the
CEDAW international convention, and approving the women's quota of 64 seats in
the country's parliament.
Models of networking for the rights of women from different countries were also
presented, such as the ANARUZ network in Morocco, which aims to combat violence
against women, and the WLUML network (Women Living under Muslim Law) that
assists non-Muslim women living in Senegal and the Western Sahara.
Egyptian models of networking were presented. According to Maree Assad, head of
the country's Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Task Force, "we succeeded in
bringing the issue of FGM to the table, which was an achievement since it was
taboo to discuss FGM in Egypt in the past. However, today we are able to run
campaigns against it every week, and our efforts are continuing."
Other successful experiences of fighting FGM in Africa were presented by Tarine
Bien-Aime, a representative of Equality Now from the UK. An effective network
should deal with movements able to reach the grassroots, in order to move human
rights forward, Bien-Aime said, adding that she hoped that such a model could
be implemented in Egypt.
There was extensive media interest in the conference. Mona El-Serafy, executive
director of Media Arts for Development (MADEV), said that her organisation
trained young people in producing professional films and film clips. She called
on the different organisations to send their youth activists to MADEV to be
trained on how to produce media messages for promoting human rights.
A short film entitled Man's Shadow was shown, which depicted how society
promotes women's submission to men and called for gender equality in rights and
responsibilities.
Using the Internet was promoted by many participants as the best way of
networking between different organisations and as a way of reaching out to
young people. Such new forms of media are important, including new social
networks like Facebook and Twitter, because they are a way of reaching new
audiences, said Nadine Moawad, a representative of the Association for Women's
Rights in Development (AWID).
Four working groups were set up on the third day of the conference to discuss
legal reforms, youth issues of gender equality, violence against women and the
role of the arts and media in promoting women's rights, the participants
including activists and feminist organisations from Egypt, the Arab and Islamic
World and international figures from the United States, India, Germany and
Senegal.
"The international researchers and representatives are experts in the Middle
East's social affairs, or represent Islamic communities that face similar
problems," said Marwa Sharafeddin, a gender consultant at GTZ and a PhD
candidate in law at Oxford University.
The conference recommended reforming personal status laws in Arab societies, in
order to make them more in line with realities on the ground. Similarly, young
people should be encouraged to become involved in the issue of women's rights,
involving them in the decision-making of feminist organisations.
Other recommendations included encouraging the private sector to participate
more in feminist activities, engaging men in efforts towards gender equality
and combating violence against women, increasing the role of the arts and media
in promoting women's rights, establishing regional networks and cooperating
with feminist NGOs around the world, and learning from previously successful
models of feminist networks.
Sharafeddin told Al-Ahram Weekly that NWRO was currently working on amendments
to Egypt's personal status laws, adding that a report would be submitted to
officials and published within a few weeks, concentrating on promoting the
values of equality, justice and respect for human dignity between men and
women.
The report was not only concerned with women's rights, but was also interested
in men's and children's rights as well, she said. "We are concentrating mainly
on issues of marriage, divorce, engagement, maintenance, obedience, polygamy,
shared wealth, custody and ro'ya (the right of divorced fathers to see their
children). We are calling for grouping these diverse provisions within one
unified family law that will promote equality and justice between men and
women."
Sharafeddin added that the NWRO drew on real problems and an enlightened
interpretation of Sharia law in drawing up its recommendations. "Most activists
in the network are religiously observant, whether Muslim or Christian, and many
of them insisted on the fact that the Sharia should be the basis for any
amendments, alongside international human-rights conventions."
She explained that the organisation had consulted with religious institutions
and figures to promote the idea that Islam calls for equality between men and
women, these including the Ministry of Waqf (Islamic endowments) and the
Musawah movement that calls for equality within Muslim families.
The work of scholars such as Abdel-Moeti Bayoumi, a professor at Al-Azhar
University in Cairo and a member of the university's Institute of Islamic
Research, was also important, Bayoumi's work stressing that a man's kiwama, or
stewardship, of woman and family was conditional and could be shared with his
wife.
"We are seeking ways to gain the support of religion in solving issues of
inequality and injustice between men and women in our society, because the
personal status law in Egypt is based on the Sharia and Islam calls for
equality," Sharafeddin said.
The idea of forming the NWRO had come after a study conducted in 2004 that
recommended forming a network to promote collective work in the field, she
said. The network had begun with six associated NGOs and now had 11. The first
topic addressed had been the issue of informal marriage, with work
concentrating on raising public awareness and trying to find a legal context
for regulating the problem.
Sharafeddin said that the conference was the first in the Arab world to promote
collective work in the field of women's rights.
"The conference came at this time because we want to increase our collective
work in general. Planning our advocacy strategy to amend the personal status
law is also an essential part of the agenda. It is a big challenge to introduce
the new family law, which is why it is very important to work collectively,"
she said.
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