Libyan women have demonstrated remarkable resilience against efforts to forcibly exclude them from shaping and participating in the transition. After battling to be included in the General National Congress, a new crisis faces Libya’s women: they are threatened with whole-scale exclusion from the Constitution Drafting Assembly, because the current draft law on elections to this Committee again omits to include a quota for women. Tarek Mitri, the UN special representative for Libya, has said that it is to the women to fight their exclusion, and that CEDAW is “wala’ishi” or “nothing”, because Parliament could not be sued for ignoring it. This is not the kind of leadership that Libyan women need in the face of a crisis of this magnitude. THERE IS STILL HOPE... We the signed, call on the Secretary General to support the quota for Libyan women. We call on the United Nations to give hope to the millions of Arabs who are standing up for inclusive governance and a peaceful future.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 05:44:59 +0000