Egyptian Women's Views on Constitutional Amendments

In January 2007 President Mubarak sent 34 proposed constitutional amendments to Parliament for review, an executive decision received with enthusiasm by the Egyptian public, despite a parallel frustration that the decision on which of the constitution's 211 articles to amend was not left to Parliament. While there has been much discussion in the Egyptian press and government circles around what constitutional reforms the public would like to see, many Egyptian women feel that insufficient attention has been paid to the influence such reforms could have on women.

The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights (ECWR), a local NGO concerned with increasing women's legal and political rights in Egypt, organized a public discussion of the matter in Dokki on January 14, 2007. The seminar, attended by over 100 people, included NGO leaders, members of political parties, legal experts, local council and parliamentary representatives, concerned Egyptian citizens (both male and female, veiled and non-veiled), journalists, and myself, apparently the sole foreigner in attendance. The event included a question-and-answer session and four featured speakers: Nahed Shehata, Director of ECWR, Mona Zulfikar, member of the National Human Rights Council, Dr. Farkhonda Hassan, Secretary-General of the National Council for Women, and Dr. Amr Hashem Rabee, constitutional and legal expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

The discussion had both informative and brainstorming components, motivated by a willingness to speak out against a constitution that Dr. Rabee described as "male" and not gender-inclusive. Nahed Shehata, who organized the event, said that it was one of the first times that Egyptians would push the bounds of acceptable speech with regard to the situation of women in the constitution. "The reality of women's lives is [what is] against the constitution, not the changes we want to see made in it," she said.

This was the first in a series of events the ECWR organized in order to draft a list of desired constitutional amendments that the organization can present to Parliament. Farkhonda Hassan, for fifty years a leading proponent of Egyptian women's rights, reminded the audience that the issue is not just to produce amendments, but to put them into practice.

After the seminar, ECWR issued a communiqué summarizing the nine recommendations developed at the event:

• • Emphasize the principles of citizenship and of a unified national identity.

• • Emphasize the social justice principle in order to close the cultural, social, and economic gaps that endanger society's cohesion. This is fundamental to protecting the stability of the nation.

• • Emphasize the principles of democracy and of a multiparty system.

• • Encourage political parties, unions, and syndicates to support women's participation.

• • Maintain judicial supervision of elections; continue to hold elections on one day (rather than multiple days); and modernize the ballot system.

• • Advocate for a positive discrimination clause that will in the long term address the marginalization of certain groups (such as women).

• • Change the Egyptian electoral system to a quota system to better fit societal conditions.

• • Discuss the constitutional amendments affecting women with different target groups of women, allowing them to express their opinions before the amendments are finalized.

• • Recognize that terrorism affects the family and poor people in particular, and that women usually pay a higher price. However, we cannot fight terrorism through laws that limit freedom.