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Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace
ARAB REFORM BULLETIN
Egypt -
Ramifications of Women’s Rights Initiatives
The National
Democratic Party (NDP) is currently championing two initiatives affecting
women’s rights: amending the personal status law and instituting a quota for
women’s representation in the lower house of parliament, the People’s Assembly.
The first initiative aims at modernizing an outdated personal status law and
increasing gender equality. The second would raise the number of elected
parliamentary seats to 500 from the current 444, allocating 56 seats to women
from all of Egypt’s governorates. The NDP says that the principle of
“citizenship”—announced as the basis of all NDP political reforms at party
conferences for the last several years—motivates both initiatives.
In
the short term, a new personal status law may have the greater impact. The NDP
has prepared a draft law, which has not yet been made public but will be
presented to the People’s Assembly during its current session (i.e. within the
next few months). The new draft law will unify the procedures of the family
court and place each case in a single file, containing all stages of
litigation, for the judge.
Several
groups, particularly the semi-governmental National Council for Women and
National Council for Childhood and Motherhood as well as some non-governmental
organizations, have put forward specific proposals to the NDP. For example, the
National Council for Women proposed amendments regarding the right of parental
visitation. Currently, a child may only meet with a parent who does not have
custody in a public place. The Council has also called for a change in
procedures to determine alimony payments. Typically, the woman accuses the man
of obscene wealth, while he pleads abject poverty, with a judge forced to
choose between the two. The Council has also suggested amendments procedures
for litigation in personal status matters, based on advice from legal experts
regarding gaps in the law.
The
new law is also expected to unify marriage laws and establish procedures for
distinguishing between religions; conversions between Christianity and Islam,
sometimes to escape religious strictures on marriage and divorce, have created
scandals and even violence in recent years. Reportedly, the Ministry of Justice
has coordinated closely with Coptic Pope Shenouda in order to incorporate
the church’s suggestions regarding provisions for marriage of Christians.
NGOs
have played an important role in documenting the current living conditions of
women and problems such as the disintegration of the family, divorce, working
mothers, and street children, to demonstrate that the current family laws are
not meeting the needs of women. They have also worked to unify efforts to
create pressure for the passage of a new personal status law.
A
parliamentary quota for women is not a new idea in Egypt; in 1979,30 (of a
total 360) parliamentary seats were reserved for women, but the provision was discarded
in a 1986 electoral law revision. Restoring a quota now would have many
advantages. It would provide to women the number of seats that they would
occupy were it not for societal restrictions, which have resulted in the
People’s Assembly having female representation of only 1.2 percent, with 2.7
percent in the partially appointed Shura Council. There is also a noticeable
decline in the level of female participation in all political
institutions—parliamentary councils, political parties, professional and trade
unions, NGOs—evidence of discrimination. Clearly political life is in need of
female expertise, which will help society develop by raising awareness of the
problems and needs of half of it members.
While
the NDP appears serious about increasing the number of women in parliament, it
is not clear yet exactly which seats will be designated for women or how they
will be selected. Will it be, for example, by means of an individual candidacy
system, in which two women from each governorate are nominated (one a
professional and another a laborer), a party list system, or some combination
of the two? The quota is thus part of a larger discussion of overall reform of
the oft-revised Egyptian electoral system. But in any case, it seems likely
that a quota for women will be in place in time for the 2010 parliamentary
elections. The question is no longer whether more women will enter parliament,
but rather how this will be accomplished.
Iman
Bibars is an international expert in gender issues and president of the
Association of the Development and Enhancement of Women in Cairo. Kevin Burnham
translated this article from Arabic.
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