In May 2011, the Women and Memory Forum has initiated the "Women & Constitution Working Group". The working group saw the light after the January 2011 Revolution and is part of the Coalition of Egyptian Feminist Organizations. The working group has been working in coordination with the "Let's Write Our Constitution" initiative and the "Popular Committee for Constitution Writing". The "Women & Constitution Working Group" has studied gender relevant articles in Egyptian constitutions and in other countries' constitutions.
This paper is providing an analysis from gender perspective and from Islamic feminist perspective, to the statements of Dr Manal Abul Hassan, the secretary of Women division of Cairo, of the Freedom and the Justice party, here and after FJP , the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Abul Hassan criticized female demonstrators and their march which was known by “women march”, where they refuted the violations of the army personals against the female protestors in the cabinet incidents, which took place in December 2011.
Today marks the International Day for The Elimination of Violence Against Women, and we as feminist organizations wanted to take part in the 16 days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence Campaign by organizing events in Egypt, especially that this year’s theme is challenging Militarism and Ending Violence against Women.
Nazra for feminist studies issued a statement on the results of women quota seats in the first round of the parliamentary elections.
Nazra for feminist studies, a member of the Independent Coalition for observing the Elections, observed the results election of the first round from gender perspective, through our observation to the results of the women quota seats of the first round, we noticed the following:
Nazra for feminist studies, a member of the Independent coalition of Observing the elections.
Nazra observed the followings in the counting of the votes process:
1. The lack of knowledge on the quota system in the electoral process was obvious in the counting of the votes process, ballot cards of the women quota seats were in the general seats boxes , and many voted only for one candidate not two candidate professional or labor and this happened in the second committee (women quota seat) in Cairo governorate .
Nazra for feminist studies, the member in the Independent coalition for observing the elections, releases a special statement on women in the election day to choose the member of Parliament and the statement has some observations on women in the elections day, and they are:
1. Because employees supervising the electoral process had limited knowledge about the women’s quota system, inaccurate information was given to women about the system.
2. The ballot cards for the quota were not clear.
Nazra for Feminist Studies has released "Manual to Integrate Gender Mainstreaming in the Electoral Process". This manual is the first step by Nazra team mainstream gender in the Electoral Process. The guide provides information on the Egyptian status and how to integrate gender in all phases of the process of election taking place in 2010.
Nazra for Feminsit Studies announced that it will monitor the parliamentary elections of 2010 from a gender perspective, through monitoring the various social, cultural, legal and economic factors that affect the empowerment of women in the elections.