CAIRO, 11 June 2006 — The Global Summit of Women began yesterday in Cairo, with participants of this second such gathering in an Arab country and bent on breaking ingrained stereotypes of Muslim women. Informally known as the “Davos for Women,” the summit convened under the theme “Redefining Leadership,” with some 900 delegates from 88 countries meeting at a luxury hotel to “advance women’s economic and entrepreneurial progress worldwide.”
Irene Natividad, president of the Global Summit of Women, said one of her main goals was to introduce a “more complex picture of the Arab woman.” “At this year’s summit, we want to introduce the delegates to Egyptian and other Arab women in business who go against the stereotype of the veiled silent woman who does not participate in a major way in her country’s economy,” she told a news conference.
The summit has been criticized by experts for focusing on economic issues when many social issues need to be addressed first, particularly in the Arab world. Morocco hosted the first such gathering in the Arab world in 2003. “When illiteracy is at 60 percent for women in Egypt, for example, how are women supposed to get into the business world?” Lamia Bulbul, a gender expert who consults for international NGOs on women’s affairs in the region, told AFP.
But Natividad argued that economic progress automatically brings about social empowerment. “The reason we focus on economic issues is because it underlines all other issues,” Natividad said at a round table of 44 international female ministers with portfolios ranging from defense to foreign affairs to women’s affairs.
“When a woman brings money home to the family, it gives her power. If we increase women’s economic participation, many issues will be resolved,” she said. Throughout the three days of meetings and workshops, the business leaders, politicians, NGO officials and researchers are expected to focus on the “empowerment” of women, especially in the region.
But according to a recent Gallup poll reported by the New York Times on Thursday, women do not feel oppressed in Muslim countries. The poll showed women from Lebanon all the way to Pakistan set aside their own issues and said Muslim countries faced greater problems, such as violent extremism, corruption and lack of unity.
Also yesterday, women leaders from around the globe are to gather in Jordan today for a three-day conference aimed at launching an international network to stem maternal and newborn mortality.
“The goal of the conference is to determine the most effective way to turn the tide on maternal and newborn mortality, and to ensure that girls everywhere have access to education,” organizers said.
“Every minute somewhere in the world a mother dies during pregnancy or childbirth; every hour 450 newborn babies die; and every three seconds a child under five dies,” they said in a statement in Amman.
“Added together, that’s more than 11 million women and children dying each year from mostly preventable causes.” In addition, more than 100 million children across the globe, most of them girls, do not attend school. Jordan’s Queen Rania Abdallah will open the conference on the shores of the Dead Sea. Prominent speakers will include Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi of Iran.
