Qandahartution: Legal experts on the "anti-women" Egyptian constitutional draft

Egypt, October 30 – Legal experts, intellectuals and activists have rejected the articles on women in the constitutional draft and said that they are subjugating and degrading.

A constitution based on the published draft would deny women and girls, who contributed vastly to the triumph of Jan 25 Revolution, all their human rights and any chance to take part in the political life.

Head of the National Council for Women Mervat Talawy criticized the published constitutional draft for not stating Egypt's commitment to the international agreements on women's right it signed.

"Article 68 which associates women's rights with the Islamic Sharia will give rise to interpretations that would condone marrying off underage girls and encourage female circumcision as a form of piety," Talawy said and demanded an article stipulating women's right to inheritance, a right some women in Upper Egypt are deprived of.

Talawy was also detested by the constitutional draft's neutrality on human trafficking.

Another subject that caused unease among intellectuals and legal experts is the ambiguity of some sinuous terms and loopholes in the constitutional draft.

"Some ultra-conservative members of the Constituent Assembly are fighting fiercely to make slavery, marriage of underage girls and domestic violence legal and unpunishable by law," said Professor of Philosophy of Law at Zagazig University Mohamed Nour Farahat

The Constituent Assembly refused to include any articles criminalizing discrimination and violence against women because "This could mean violence within the family, which is acceptable," they said, activist Manal el-Tayiby narrated with astonishment.

They agreed that the published constitutional draft strips women, and society, of all the necessary
requirements for founding a modern nation on the values of equality, citizenship and
peace.