OIC Finalising Action Plan for Women Empowerment

Kari Leonard
October 16, 2008
3:41pm

This article is about how the OIC Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women is moving toward raising their status in society. It stresses the laws aimed at enhancing the advancement of women in economic, cultural, social and political fields in Muslim societies. The plan of action is the result of the First Ministerial Conference on Women’s Role in Development that was held in Istanbul in 2006. The implementation of the plan is being worked on between Egypt and other countries so that they can exchange points of view, lessons learned and best strategies that will work. The plan “calls for increasing the participation of Saudi women, enlarging and strengthening the role of the family in society while preserving its Islamic and Arab values by developing the capabilities of women and removing the obstacles hindering their participation in the nation’s development and economic activities” (Shaikh). To me this is amazing, when I think about it though it still makes me cringe how it is now 2009 and women in developing countries have made strides of independence, but that they are still nowhere near where the women of the U.S. are. But when I think about the fact that they at least have a plan that is written out and are making strides to implement it shows great hope. There are a lot of countries that claim false promises to the women, “We are going to do this for you, or we will give you this.” The fact that this country actually has a plan written and is making steps to accomplish the goals shows definite promise to these women.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?col=&section=middleeast&xfile=data/middleeast/2008/October/middleeast_October243.xml