WUNRN
Nazra for Feminist Studies – Egypt
EGYPT - FEMINIST GROUPS & ORGANIZATIONS COLLABORATE TO PRESENT THEIR VISION FOR A NATIONAL STRATEGY TO COMBAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN & ADOPT A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE TO ERADICATE THESE CRIMES FROM ROOTS
Joint Statement
10 December 2014 - A few state institutions have taken
preliminary procedures to combat violence against women in Egypt, which include
announcing, a few weeks ago, the formation of a committee that is coordinated
by the National Council for Women with several ministries and a small number of
civil society organizations and initiatives, for the design of a national
strategy to combat violence against women, which several feminist organizations
and groups and a few human rights organizations have called for it since last
year.
It is worth mentioning that the formation of the recent
committee is regarded as a basic and important step to start the necessary
procedure of combating these crimes, but at the same time, the feminist groups
and organizations that called for this strategy remain extremely concerned that
this committee will result in a vast shortage in the elements of the concerned
strategy, and the degree to which the concerned committee will be committed to
design the national strategy and its plan according to the recommendations made
by feminist and human rights groups, which have borne the responsibility of
making field interventions via the provision of medical, psychological and
legal support to survivors of these crimes, whether in the private or public
spheres, for many years, which might result in introducing a strategy that has
a limited vision and is ineffective, as a result of its limitations and the
lack of transparency in regards to the procedures of its announcement or
implementation.
Subsequently, we, a group of feminist organizations and
groups that share the same principles and biases, especially towards the issue
of violence against women, announce our joint collaboration and building on our
experiences in the field of standing against crimes of violence against women
and responding to them, in order to design a national strategy that includes
the roles that should be carried out by state institutions, including the
ministries of Justice - and the Forensic Medicine Administration - Interior,
Health, Education, Media, Social Solidarity and the National Council for Women,
among other concerned parties, in addition to non-governmental feminist
organizations. This stems from our belief in carrying out our fundamental role
in making pivotal interventions and working as a pressure group to improve the
deteriorating status of violence practiced against women of all kind and
manner, and assert our complete independence from the committee that currently
works on the concerned strategy without adhering to any standards of
transparency, which we believe in.
We see that in this manner, we continue our role as an
independent civil feminist society, by introducing a knowledge-based background
and evaluation of the situation, providing solutions and alternative policies,
in addition to reflecting on the forthcoming steps, and we will provide in the
coming days our vision regarding the general framework for the concerned strategy
and the role of state institutions and method of work plan implementation
related to our vision. This comes to guarantee posing the issue of violence
against women on the priority list and agenda of the state, especially in the
midst of the horrific spread of these crimes, especially crimes of sexual
violence that took place last year, with the absence of drastic solutions and
the ineffectiveness of measures taken by the state.
The design of the concerned strategy by the undersigned
feminist organizations and groups will include the mechanisms arising from the
referred to field experiences, which included the degree to which state
institutions responded to these crimes, including the police, medical
hospitals, courts, legislative procedures, or rather, their absence, with only
one exception, specifically the legal one regarding the crimes that were
committed on June 8, 2014 during the inauguration of the new Egyptian president
in Tahrir Square and its vicinity, in addition to adopting the international
and broad definition for violence, which Egypt had signed and ratified via
several international agreements and treaties since 1994 in the Population and
Development Conference and Beijing Declaration in 1995, in addition to working
on the necessary legislative amendments that some of the undersigned
organizations have called for, for many years, and had submitted proposals for
them to different governments, which showed no response to them whatsoever, or
even initiated a serious conversation around them.
It has become very clear that there is no alternative to
designing a real and effective national strategy to begin eradicating these
crimes from their roots, and work on creating safe private and public spheres
for women in a society that seeks to preserve the rights of its citizens, and
ensure the availability of necessary services to survivors by the state,
through which their dignity can be ensured, and apply serious methods to
eradicate the culture of impunity for perpetrators of these crimes, while guaranteeing
that the Egyptian government abides by the application of the agreements and
treaties it ratified and signed, to put an end to crimes that close up the
public space for women and continue in making a private sphere that women
cannot live in, or enjoy their basic rights in.
Signatories:
1. Nazra for Feminist Studies.
2. Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA).
3. ElNadeem Center for the Treatment and Rehabilitation
of Victims of Violence and Torture.
4. New Woman Foundation
(NWF).