Women Empowerment between Constitution and Law

For the first time, an Egyptian Constitution (Egypt’s Constitution of 2014) specifically addresses women in both language and content, to the extent that it singles women out in four provisions. In addition, numerous articles of the Constitution reflect women’s rights, even though they address all. But laws still lack the gender perspective, whether at the economic, social or political levels. Moreover, they fall short of reflecting on the situation of women. As a case in point, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (2015) ranked Egypt 136 out of 142 countries due to the gap between the constitution and the laws.
The aim of this study is to prepare a detailed report of the gap identified between articles of the Constitution and existing laws; deepen the gap analysis with the Constitution; and put forth specific proposals for amending these laws, including a plan of action, performance indicators and a time horizon with delineation of responsibilities. This study comes within the framework of a report on the empowerment of women, which will form an essential part of the women’s empowerment strategy prepared by the National Council for Women in collaboration with the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies.