Algerian feminists criticise UNDP report

2006-12-22

The UNDP released a report saying that Arab women lack civil liberties and access to good healthcare and education. Feminists in Algeria are criticising the report for not taking into account the progress Algeria has made in women's rights in recent years.

By Lyes Aflou for Magharebia in Algiers -- 22/12/06

[Getty Images] Algerian women have made considerable progress, say Algerian politicians.

A UNDP report, entitled "Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World", was presented to women parliamentarians on Tuesday (December 19th) by Abdelwahab Rezzig, a member of the report advisory board. The report found that Arab women's rights were lacking in civil and political liberties, education, health and personal wealth.

The 2005 report, prepared by the Arab Development Fund and the Arab Gulf Programme for the development agencies of the UN, was criticised by Algerian feminists, who believe it failed to mention progress made by women in the country.

Algerian daily La Nouvelle Republique quoted UNDP Resident Representative in Algeria Marc Destanne de Bernis as saying that the report was "unbalanced" and the research was based more on the situation in the Middle East than on the Maghreb.

The report found that the employment rate for Arab women is "the lowest in the world at 33%, compared with 69% for women in East Asia and the Pacific and over 60% in sub-Saharan Africa".

According to the statistics in the report, although the number of girls in all levels of education exceeds that of boys in a number of Arab countries, less than 80% of young girls in all Arab countries -- with the exception of Bahrain, Jordan and the Occupied Territories -- receive secondary education.

As for legal rights, the report stresses that even though 17 out of the 21 Arab countries have signed and ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), they have also made a number of reservations which have stripped it of most of its substance.

Algerian Senate Deputy Speaker Zohra Drif-Bitat said that the UNDP report ignored the progress made by Algerian women. A similar view was expressed by Leila Djabri, a member of the Women’s Emancipation Association with regard to the amendments made to the Family Code, which give women more rights in divorce cases. She pointed out that women no longer have to be accompanied by a guardian when they get married. Regarding divorce, mothers now have the same child custody rights as fathers.

Drif-Bitat said that 35% of high-ranking positions in Algeria’s magistrate are occupied by women, and that women have made strides in terms of their employment rate, which has risen to 26% from 12% in 1996.

Rezzig, who presented the report, conceded that "not all data was taken into account, such as information regarding the education system in Algeria where the number of girls in secondary and higher education is far higher than that for boys". On the subject of the Family Code, he said that "the far-reaching amendments made to this law should have been highlighted" and pointed out that the UNDP report was based on data from international bodies such as the WHO and UNESCO rather than on national Algerian data.