Jordan Times
Tuesday, March 9, 2004
Women's organisations discuss updated draft national strategy for women
AMMAN (JT) — HRH Princess Basma on Monday pointed to Jordan and the region's economic difficulties as the primary issue in the draft national strategy for women.
Taking part in a women's meeting in the village of Dheeban near Madaba to discuss the updated draft on the occasion of the International Women's Day, Princess Basma described the strategy as “an action plan to set the present priorities of Jordanian women within the framework of national priorities that emerged in recent years.”
The meeting was organised by the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW), which the Princess chairs, in cooperation with the General Federation of Jordanian Women (GFJW), the Jordanian Women's Union and the Jordanian National Forum for Women (JNFW).
Princess Basma stressed that Jordan's women have their say in the strategy, adding that the Kingdom's interest in women preceded the current world focus on women's issues especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
She said the Kingdom's initiatives throughout the past decades “were based on reality and facts on the ground and were consistent with our religious values, culture and real needs.”
“This is exactly the basis on which we are working to upgrade the national strategy for women,” she told the participants.
In their addresses at the meeting, GFJW President Anas Saket, JWU's Amnah Zu'bi and Secretary General of the JNFW Senator May Abu Samen, said women's activities in Jordan are carried out under the guidelines of the national strategy.
They explained that the strategy was drafted by the women themselves.
The women leaders hailed the plan as flexible, realistic and civilised in its mechanisms, methodology and aims.
On behalf of the JNFW general secretariat, Ibtisam Atiyat reviewed the phases the national women's strategy has witnessed and the workshops held to upgrade the nation-wide plan throughout the Kingdom.
Outlining the content of the strategy, Atiyat said it consists of five major axes: Legislation, human security, social protection, economic empowerment and participation in public life, the media and communication.
More than 3,000 women representing the Madaba Governorate took part in the discussion of the strategy's five components.
Under the leadership of Princess Basma, and through a national consensus-building process, JNCW formulated the national strategy for women in 1993. In 1999, the Princess launched a campaign to update the plan to line with current developments.