Jordan Times
Thursday, July 1, 2004
The Jordanian National
Commission for Women to
hold nationwide debates on women's role in political development
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — The Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) will hold a national
conference to further enhance the role of Jordanian women in political
development and to increase their participation in public and political life.
“The event will include a series of activities
throughout the Kingdom and we expect to come up with a concrete plan of action
to be specified with a time frame and the stakeholders that will carry out each
measure, said JNCW Secretary General Amal Sabbagh.
The plan of action will then be presented to the premier in the final event, and
the JNCW will follow up on the implementation and report to the prime minister
annually,” Sabbagh told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.
The National Conference on Political Development and Jordanian Women: Discourse
and Mechanisms event, will include a series of meetings and activities across
the Kingdom during the month of July.
Activities will include three panel discussions in the north, centre and south,
a workshop for youth, and a final event in which the plan of action will be
presented, Sabbagh explained.
“The JNCW decided to expand its conference activities to include many districts
in the Kingdom because we felt that the majority of work is concentrated in
Amman and we wanted people in remote areas to be able to participate and propose
their suggestions and demands,” she said.
According to Sabbagh, the JNCW convened several meetings with some 43
individuals who formed the preparatory committee for the national event.
The representatives include women NGOs, political parties (leftists, centrists
and Islamists), professional and labour unions, representatives of the
executive, legislative and judiciary authorities, academia, media, youth and the
National Centre for Human Rights.
“The meetings will focus on holding different discourses on the topic of
political development and women with the widest possible participation of
stakeholders so as to reach a national consensus on activating and increasing
the role of women in political life,” Sabbagh said.
The talks, according to Sabbagh, will focus on defining the principles that
underpin the participation of women in political development, and discussing the
challenges and opportunities that the process for women's participation in
political development might face.
“Debates will also draw up an effective institutional plan of action and
specifying the mechanisms for implementation and follow-up of the plan,” she
added.