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Are women being left out of Egypt’s future?

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Summary of story from Dawn, July 30, 2011

Women, of all ages and from all walks of life, were fearless participants in Egypt’s January revolution .

They came to Tahrir Square in droves to send the message that change was needed in Egypt and they wanted to be part of that change.

But as Egypt moves forward to create this new future, where are the women now?

There are no women on the constitutional committee; there were no women among the ten opposition leaders chosen to “negotiate” with the government during the revolution.

It seems that Egypt is having difficulty accepting Egyptian women as part of the new vision for their country.

In addition to this, there is a perception among many Egyptian women that they are not as important as non-Egyptian women.

For example, following the sexual assault of the CBS correspondent Lara Logan (see WVoN story), Egyptian activists rightly apologised for the attack.

However, Heba, an Egyptian university graduate who was assaulted on the streets of Cairo, did not receive the same treatment following her attack. When she went to the police, they told her to forget the matter.

She said: “When I was about to leave after nothing was being done, the same captain turned to me and said ‘thank God it wasn’t a foreigner or a diplomat’s wife’. This is the problem, we Egyptians are not even treated with respect as citizens.”

According to the Egyptian Center for Woman’s Rights (ECWR), nearly 70 per cent of Egyptian women have had a similar experience.

The solution? According to one of the new leaders of the revolution, Google Executive Wael Ghonim, “we need more girls”.

From the thousands of protesting women in Tahrir during the revolution, the country’s leaders ought to be able to find potential new politicians.

The fact that they haven’t, points to the sad truth that women are not welcome participants in Egypt’s political scene.

Nehad Abu Komsan, the head of the ECWR, believes that until society’s mindset changes, stereotypes and misogyny will continue.

“Egyptians need to understand that this is a major problem that only in the past few weeks have we as a society been able to speak openly, but too many people are focused on the politics, while the social problems remain as concrete as ever,” she said.

Egyptian women deserve better. It is their time to make a new country, for themselves and for their fellow citizens.

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