(Cairo December 11th, 2013) ECWR held yesterday a consultative meeting with political parties on women situation in New Egypt’s Constitution. The meeting was attended by 40 representatives from the political parties including heads of political parties, representatives of women’s committees in the political parties from 21 political parties including “the Nasserist Arab Socialist Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the Tagamo’a Party , the Democratic Front Party, the Egyptian Socialist Party, The Human Rights and Citizenship Party, the Egyptian Political Democratic Party, The Revolution’s Party, the Egypt’s National Party, The Revolutionary Guards Party, the Egyptian National Movement Party, the Free Egyptians Party, the Liberal Party, the Democratic Union Party, The Dignity Party, The Socialist Workers Party, Egypt’s Revolution Party, Egypt’s Eye Party, the Awareness Party, The Constitution Party, and the Justice Party.”
The meeting addressed the article related to women in the 2013 draft Constitution, compared to the articles related to women in the 2012 Constitution. The attendance confirmed that the draft of New Constitution includes many of gains for women in particular, whether at the levels of political, social, educational, or the labor field.
The participants also discussed the Article # 180 that includes allocation of 25% of seats for women in the local councils which considers a good step on the pathway of women’s political participation.
The most significant recommendations of the meetings were as follows:
- The need to work together in groups to raise women’s awareness of the article pertaining to women in the 2013 draft Constitution and the necessity to participate in the referendum.
- The need to reactivate the Coordinative Action for Egyptian women which includes many of female leaders form political parties and civil society and to form a women’s lobby within the political parties aiming to increase women’s participation in the parliament through allocating specific percentage for women in the upcoming parliamentary election whether the electoral system is an individual-candidate system, or via party lists.
- The need to a ballot box for women that will be under the supervision of the National Council for Women (NCW) and in cooperation with the women’s NGOs as well as business women in order to provide the financial support for women’s candidates in the parliamentary or local elections.
Media coverage in Arabic news portal and newspaper
Egyptian women portal
Nesf el Donia ( Half the population)
El Gomhouria (The republic)
Akhbary (My news)
Shabeket Akhbar Masr el Youm (Egypt Today News Network)
