(Cairo, December 28, 2022)
The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) issues its annual report on the status of Egyptian women for the year 2022. This report monitors the progress and failures on the situation of women’s status throughout the year.
The report indicates that the situation of women throughout 2022 witnessed a number of positive steps, which are represented in the continuation of the political will to support and empower women. In the speech at the celebration of Egyptian Women’s Day, many legal and legislative measures to empower women were called for, as well as opening the door for equal appointment to judicial positions for female and male graduates of law faculties, after the struggle and resistance to appoint young women to the Public Prosecution and the State’s Council that went on for more than seventy years.
In addition to this, the formation of a committee of ten judges to present a draft on modern personal status law commensurate with the social and economic changes in society.
As for the negative side, the incidence of violence against women in the public sphere has increased, where several young women were killed in the street at the hands of young men who acted after the refusal of marriage by these young women. Domestic violence remained at alarming rates, which reached beatings in the street, an incident known in the media as the “bride of Ismailia”, where a bride – from Ismailia Governorate – was beaten after leaving the beauty center. The groom attacked her while she was still wearing her wedding dress, a fact that, warns on the danger of continuing to ignore domestic violence and the importance of finding firm mechanisms to reduce it, which has led to more permissiveness of women and girls.
The report monitors the indicators of Egypt’s ranking among the countries of the world according to development reports, which considers the qualitative perspective as the basic criterion for measuring the economic status of countries. This confirms the importance of empowering women in all fields. According to the 2022 Gender Gap Report issued by the World Economic Forum, Egypt ranked 129 out of 146 countries in the overall ranking, and it ranked 142 in the Economic Participation and Opportunity Index, which is a relatively low ranking.
Moreover, a progress has been achieved at the level of the educational attainment index, as Egypt has reached the rank of 103, and in the health and survival index, it has reached the 93rd rank, and the 78th rank in the economic empowerment index.
According to the Women, Business and the Law 2022 report issued by the World Bank Group, which measures whether laws in the country facilitate or hinder women’s economic participation, Egypt scored 50.6 on the index, which is the average score. This means that in Egypt there are still some laws that threaten women’s economic security, career growth, and work-life balance. These barriers to women’s economic participation create a business environment that does not adequately support working women.
For more here is the link of the report in Arabic: https://ecwronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Womens-Status-Report-2022.pdf
