Why Are Women Shut Out of Egypt’s Constitutional Committee?

Sixty-three Egyptian organizations have decried the absence of women on Egypt’s Constitutional Committee, the body tasked with ensuring rights and proposing amendments to the country’s constitution. In a petition signed last week, the groups said that a committee without a single female legal expert—of which there are many in Egypt—“triggers fears and suspicions with regards to the future of Egypt” after the January 25 revolution.

This raises a key question about “the main aims of the revolution which were initially spelled out as equality, freedom, democracy, and participation of all citizens,” the groups said. Women “have the right to participate in building the new Egyptian state.”

The petition also questions the selection criteria of Constitutional Committee members and says that women participated equally in the revolution and that some of them have been jailed.

Read the petition in English on the website of the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights.