Source: ACHR
Today, the world is celebrating the World Day for Women in recognition of women’s role and efforts in rising and improving the conditions of societies. This day is in commemoration of a group of working women who were killed when they were striking to improve their livelihoods and their working conditions.
In Egypt, women suffer from many problems, as they are deprived off work, education and healthcare; they face discrimination, violence and the deterioration of their economic, social, political and cultural rights, because of the free market policies implemented by the Egyptian government. These policies excluded women workers in the agrarian sector from legal protection and deprived them from health insurance and social security guaranteed by the labor law no. 12 for the year 2003. Women face discrimination in the salaries they receive, holidays and promotions inside companies and factories. It is also hard for women to obtain a board membership in agrarian associations or even manage their own lands by themselves. Women in Egypt still face problems to receive their inheritance, and Egyptian women who are married to foreign men still face problems in obtaining the Egyptian nationality for their children.
The Egyptian penal law also discriminates between men and women, especially in articles no. 227 and 274, as I a woman killed her husband, she gets 25 years of hard labor imprisonment, while when a man kills his wife, he gets a less period of imprisonment.
The Egyptian media also reflects a moral, social, political and economic discrimination against women. It presents a woman as an image of sexual excitement, violence, naivety, a follower to her husband or greatening and appreciating her role as a mother, and completely neglecting her role as producer and a contributor in developing political work and the decision making process.
Official numbers in Egypt indicate that women face mental, physical and sexual abuse at work, in the street and inside the family circle.
The retardation and subordination conditions that the whole Egyptian society suffers from have negatively affected the different social classes, and women were the most vulnerable group and one of the main victims of persecution, subdual and violence.
We need to stop violence against women and improve their conditions by eliminating poverty and raising the awareness of the public opinion about their rights to guarantee them a better, safer and fairer future.
For more information, please contact the Center
www.lchr-eg.org