“The new Constitution shows disregard for women’s rights and it takes us back to the dark ages.”
This is how Mervat al-Talawy, head of Egypt’s National Council for Women, began her criticism of the recently approved Constitution. She continued on to say that the new Constitution included many articles that would simply force Egyptian women to stay home, without job prospects and without completing their educations.
“The new Constitution shows disregard for women’s rights and it takes us back to the dark ages.”
This is how Mervat al-Talawy, head of Egypt’s National Council for Women, began her criticism of the recently approved Constitution. She continued on to say that the new Constitution included many articles that would simply force Egyptian women to stay home, without job prospects and without completing their educations.
In fact, al-Talawy said, the former Egyptian Constitution of 1971 had been far better for women. “The 1971 Constitution included explicit protection for women’s rights, such the Article on discrimination and equality between the sexes. We were actually surprised by the fact that that Article was missing from this Constitution. It will make it easier to discriminate on the basis of gender – especially if some try to mistakenly take advantage of Islamic Sharia law to place restrictions on women.”
Al-Talawy was also concerned about the parts of the Constitution that talked about morality and the preservation of tradition. Under the pretext of preserving traditions and preventing immorality, Al-Talawy worried that women’s rights could be further eroded.
Additionally Al-Talawy also criticised the lack of any Article that addressed the problem of human trafficking and violence, even though these too were present in the past 1971 Constitution.
“It will be easier to traffic women, to expose them to violence and to force them to leave school and get married far too young,” she argued. “I still don’t understand why these Articles were not included in the current Constitution. All I can conclude is that this is some sort of plan to take Egyptian women back to the dark ages and to restrict their freedoms.”
Also concerned about this aspect was Azza Suleiman, a lawyer working on women’s legal issues and the president of the Centre for Women’s Issues. Suleiman described the new Constitution as “repugnant” and far worse for women than the previous one.
“The 1971 Constitution included Articles that emphasized international conventions concerned with protecting women and preserving their rights. This is entirely absent from the new Constitution,” Suleiman said. “The new Constitution doesn’t talk about social justice at all nor does it denounce violence against women or the trafficking of women. I think that women in Egypt are about to go through particularly difficult and dangerous times.”
As a professor of sociology specialising in women’s issues, Zeinab Chahine was also concerned about the fact that the new Constitution focuses on the traditional roles of women while ignoring their role as employees and their influential role in the economy.
“Women are dealt with only as wives and mothers; there is no reference to them as working women with social rights and obligations,” Chahine explains.
This was also a problem for Al-Talawy, who says that Article 10 of the new Constitution sums up the new attitude toward Egyptian women. This Article states that: “the State shall ensure maternal and child health services free of charge, and enable reconciliation between the duties of a woman toward her family and her work”. It also talks about protecting divorcees and widows.
“Unfortunately the current Constitution only sees women as wives and mothers. It forgets that a woman is also a human being with the right to make a decent living,” Al-Talawy argued.
Chahine also notes the lack of female representatives on the Constituent Assembly of Egypt which was formed to draft the new Constitution. There were 100 seats on the assembly but only 6 of them were held by women.
“We had demanded equal representation, 50 percent,” Chahine said. “But that didn’t happen. And as a result this Assembly simply didn’t represent Egyptian women adequately.”
Important Egyptian laws affecting women’s rights in issues such as divorce and child custody are not mentioned in the new Constitution either, al-Talawy explains.
These laws are usually known as “Suzanne Mubarak’s laws”, after the former leader’s wife who headed the National Council for Women – the position that al-Talawy now holds. As many Egyptian women’s rights activists have pointed out, “women’s rights were hardly ever mentioned in the media without being directly associated with [Mubarak].”
But Al-Talawy believes it’s a grievous mistake to use that term in post-revolution Egypt. Laws on divorce and custody were enacted as a result of pressure from women’s rights groups and had nothing to do with Suzanne Mubarak, she stresses.
“And now there is an article in the new Constitution stating that current laws shall remain effective so long as they are consistent with the new Constitution,” al-Talawy explains. “So we may just see laws on divorce and custody revoked – especially because they are not enshrined in the new Constitution.”
On the other side of the fence though, was constitutional law expert and law professor, Tharwat Badawi, who had also advised on drafting the Constitution.
“Suzanne Mubarak’s laws have been the primary cause for increased divorce cases and should be abandoned in order to eliminate discrimination and achieve equality,” Badawi said, illustrating just how far apart the two schools of thought were on this issue. He felt that the laws, and groups like the National Council for Women, were trying to cause more discrimination between men and women by stirring gender issues up.
Badawi also felt that women’s rights were well protected by the Constitution. “Article 10 assures women’s rights with a government commitment to help divorced or widowed women or households where women are the sole income earners. It also stresses the importance of the government’s provision of all services connected with maternity and childhood.”
