Lively women’s conference in Cairo
“Women’s issues are at stake with the uprisings in the Middle East,” says a women’s’ rights activist from Jordan. Hivos partner Karama uses every opportunity to encourage the participation of Arab women in society.
From 13 until 16 May 2011 Hivos and Karama organised a lively women’s conference in Cairo. The result is: a list of priorities for agents of change. Now that Mubarak has been driven out, it is time for the women who demonstrated in large numbers to think about the necessary reforms in more concrete detail. Urgency is required because the momentum of change could disappear and the position of women won’t improve without a major effort.
Risk
“It is crucial to be directly involved in the situation in the Middle East. Things may well change for the better for women, but during the transition phase the balance may shift the wrong way”, explains Layla Naffa, an experienced women’s rights activist from Jordan. Naffa is worried about a more dominant role of the political Islam: “We have the feeling that the majority of islamists, who used to operate underground, will now demand room for their views. This poses a risk to women’s rights.”
United
This three-day conference was attended by over ninety activists, lawyers and political leaders from the Middle East. Despite their many differences, the participants agreed on one important issue: Arab women should take part, and be able to take part, in society. Equal representation of women in democratic processes, constitutional reforms, more freedom in the public arena and strategic networks were high on the agenda. Journalists of international media, ambassadors and politicians saw that the women were united in their pleas for more rights and support rom the European Union for their cause.
Rapid
Karama also raised the issue of participation of women at the
Middle Eastern Perspectives on the Revolutions seminar, organized by Hivos on 18 April 2011 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Hivos proactively supports Karama in developing a regional network prioritising the participation of women in the current developments. "We have no time to lose. We must professionalise political activism, now that the region is rapidly developing at a pace that we haven’t experienced for many years", according to Karama.
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