In Light of the Constitution & the Road map The Future of Women’s Political Participation

Egyptian Women struggled over the 6 decades in order to obtain the right to political participation, which started since the revolution of July 23, 1952 until women got the right to participate as voters and candidates in 1956, and resulted in their first presence within the 1957 parliament with two seats. It is worth mentioning that the percentage of women’s representation in the parliament since obtaining their political rights and until now does not exceed 2% with the exception of the periods that have adopted Quota systems for women and the Proportional list system in 1979, 1984, and 2010. In spite of all, Egyptian Women still suffer from the culture, social, political and discrimination even though the Egyptian women have influential voting bloc. However, the debate on any women’s rights in general and political rights in particular disturbs many people. Women and their demands do not attract any attention except before any election in order to guarantee their votes. Egypt recorded a huge degradation at the level of political women’s rights as it ranked 125 out of 133 in the world; according to the Gender Gap Report issued by the World Economic Forum 2012. In the women’s representation in the parliament and after unprecedented participation of women in the 25 Jan revolution, Egypt ranked 128 out of 131 countries. However, Women gained nothing in this revolution; women’s representation in the post revolution parliament was 1.8%. Now, after correcting the pathway of the revolution in June 30th 2013, the 10 members committee undertook amending the inactivated constitution with articles that have no a guarantee of women’s political participation rights. Therefore, in cooperation with The Foundation for the Future (FFF), the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) and the Parliament of Defending Women’s Rights will hold a press conference to present the situation of the draft of Constitution that was submitted by the 10-memebers committee and the articles should be included in the constitution to guarantee women’s political participation and discussing the future of the Egyptian Women after June 30th in the light of road map. The press conference will be held on Tuesday August 27, 2013 in Maadi Hotel at 11:00 AM

Sincerely

Nehad Abo El-Qomsan