The “Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights” and the “Egyptian Coalition for Civic Education and Women’ particpation” received the news of the exclusion of women from the Governor’s post with an intense resentment and exclamation. That was after the announcements of the Prime Minister Dr. Essam Sharaf and the Judge Mohamed Atteya, Minister of the local development, stating that they are actually studying the files of women who are working in the local administration, in order to choose between them the qualified ones for the post of Governor in the next movement, where he states “As long as women are able to give, the government has no objection to her tenure as governor.”
ECWR received these statements with a satisfaction by considering it as one of the indicators for the correction of the political process and the choice on the basis of qualification and citizenship criteria, and then, the decision of the changes of Governors was disappointing, confirming the government’s retreat for the appointment of women in the post of Governor pretending the existence of a security vacuum now in the country which makes her unable to go down to street and follow-up the public’s problems.
These repeated statements on appointment of women as a governor and then decline, that
underlines the continuing absence of the political entity by the Military Council and Council of Ministers for the participation of women in the decision-making posts which breaches the citizenship principle for which women and civil society organizations concerned by women have fought for long periods, as it’s abort the demands of the 25th of January revolution (equality, justice and non-discrimination.)
Egyptian women have proved that they are capable of giving in all areas and all circumstances, this was appearing through its participation in the 25th of January revolution, and the pretend that the reason of the exclusion based on lack of security is unreasonable and unacceptable, the problem of the security is an influencing factor on all the Egyptian in the light of the security vacuum and the accidents that are committed on a daily basis and the lost of lives of many Egyptian people, despite the presence of conservative men in their positions as governors. The gender was not the influential factor in the increase or the reduction of such accidents.
Therefore, It’s not acceptable accounting women for the lack of security, rather than the
perpetrators accountable. The exclusion of women in Egypt turned into a systematic policy even if there were many allegations.
Therefore, ECWR demands to:
- Announce rapidly a strategy for working on eliminating discrimination against women.
- Restructure quickly the “National Council For Women” as a national machinery expresses women in Egypt.
- The necessity of developing a mechanism which guarantees fair representation of women in all positions based on the criteria of efficiency.
