In Response – Al Masry Al Youm – Lawsuit demands dissolution of National Council for Women

Gwenn Meredith, PhD

According to the Egypt Independent a lawsuit demanding the dissolution of the current Egyptian National Council for Women has been filed.  Al Masry Al Youm – English Edition carried this article which specifically states that the ‘council…was formed by members of the disbanded National Democratic Party’ and is still currently being used as a ‘tool…to achieve nefarious objectives’.

The nefarious objectives include promoting Suzanne Mubarek’s personal agenda, siphoning government money into non-NCW aims, and not truly representative of Egyptian women.  In addition the lawsuit remarks that while the old regime’s president was removed, his wife still maintains her position as head of the NCW.

While a professor at the American University in Cairo I took the opportunity to visit the NCW seeking possible internships for some of my students taking my classes on Gender and also present the plight of street girls living in Islaheyas, places meaning ‘to fix’ in Arabic.  I met with the then director Farkhonda Hassan and though she appeared to listen, her obvious agenda only advocated Suzanne Mubarek, the wonderful things she did for Egypt’s women, her visits to the United Nations as a supporter of women’s rights, and Suzanne’s trips to other African nations seeking an end to such horrors as FGM, selling daughters, and female infanticide.  Plied with brochures picturing Suzanne Mubarek in great photo ops, I can understand the ire of those advocating the dissolution of the current NCW in Egypt.

None of my students were ever offered an internship, no aid came to the rescue of the street girls virtually imprisoned in the slums of Egypt’s Islaheyas*, and any further attempts to visit the NCW came to nothing as the director or her selected staff never had time to meet. 

Cairo itself has upwards of 50,000 [estimated] street children at least half of whom are girls.  Suzanne Mubarek had thirty years in which to help these Egyptian girls achieve any life or sense of self with the millions of pounds available to her through this one agency, the NCW.  But over the years, not only did the number of Il Binait Dol increase [in Arabic meaning ‘those girls’], the practice of FGM still carries on in most of Egypt, [though ostensibly illegal, the practice is common], and girls are still ‘sold’ in any kind of marriage or other relationships to the highest bidder, particularly in the poorer parts of Upper Egypt.  What happens to the Islaheya girls is another question for which Suzanne Mubarek and her current NCW are answerable; crimes against humanity must not go unpunished or unrecognized by the international community. 

Egypt’s female population still suffers as witnessed by the actions of the military over the last few months.  In October a young woman protesting for women’s rights was taken by the military, separated from colleagues and subjected to abject humiliation as these soldiers pulled her clothes off and began ‘examining to check her virginity’.  Fortunately this woman braved public notoriety by seeking prosecution against these soldiers, a case decided in a December 2011 court decision in her favour.  But what of the other woman, a professor of Dentistry in a University situated in the Nile Delta.  Taken brutally by soldiers in Medan Tahrir while protesting for women’s rights, soldiers lifted her galabeya, exposing her nakedness to the crowds.  They then beat her senseless.  Brought to the hospital, she was handcuffed to her bed, while treated for severe injuries to her head and body.  Exposed to ridicule by certain members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafi, these men attempted to change the issue away from her privilege to advocate for women’s rights, but they accused her of being naked, not properly dressed for a women. 

Where then are the NCW and Suzanne Mubarek in this fray?  No mention of this agency or any one in power leaping into the light upholding these women and their personal rights.  These two young women and the plight of the Islaheya girls represent an unspoken, underlying tone embedded in Egyptian society.  This of course is not to say that all Egyptian men and women feel this way, many display complete disgust at the military behavior, at the practice of FGM and would never contemplate this treatment for their daughters, nor do they agree with the ongoing subjection of young girls to any of the violations practiced against the female population.

A great responsibility lays upon the Egyptian system to see to the ousting of all nefarious activities and their primary actors, and for the women of Egypt who deserve so much more than the ‘in name only’ support of Suzanne Mubarek and the current NCW.

*Read an excerpt from my as yet unpublished manuscript, Il Binait Dol, Egypt’s Hidden Shame, to understand the depth of shame suffered by Egypt’s female population.