For the first time in Egypt’s history, its highest court has seen a female judge preside over a case. Radwa Helmi was one of 98 women appointed last year to sit on the bench of the State Council in Cairo— one of the main judicial bodies in the country of 106 million.
The decision was made in March last year by Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who had urged his Justice Minister, Omar Marwan to coordinate with the leaders of the Supreme Judicial Council and the State Council to ensure that female judges were elected to work across the courts.
The vice president of the State Council, Taha Karsoua called the move “a dear gift for women in Egypt.”
The head of the National Council for Women (NCW), Maya Morsi, told The Guardian over the weekend that the day marks a momentous occasion for women in the country.
“The fifth of March has become a new historical day for Egyptian women,” she said. “The dreams of earlier generations of women finally come true.”
In Egypt, female judges make up only 0.5 percent of all judges in the country. Roughly 25 percent of cabinet posts in parliament are held by women.
The Global Gender Gap report from a few years ago ranked Egypt 135th out of 149 countries. Last January, the Egyptian cabinet approved a bill that made it mandatory for women to get the consent of a male guardian to get married, to register a child’s birth or to travel abroad.
More than half of women between the ages of 15 and 59 have been subject to female genital mutilation at some point in their lives.
The Demographic and Health Survey from 2000 revealed that 97 percent of the female respondents who were married said they had experienced female genital mutilation.
When current president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, came into power in 2014, he consistently declared his support for women, though critics are quick to point out that Al-Sisi’s feminist stance is perhaps “…more of a strategy to harness women’s support against the Muslim Brotherhood than a genuine commitment to gender equality.”
“The regime’s narrative blatantly contradicts its actual poor record on women’s rights, as documented by feminist organisations and international mechanisms,” one writer in Euromed Rights, the largest human rights organisations in the Euro-Mediterranean region, wrote.
“The Egyptian state’s feminist discourse is merely a diplomatic tool to attract international support.”
In 2017, the National Council for Women laid out its Women Empowerment Strategy, which included the aim of reaching at least a quarter of female judges by 2030.
Tahany al-Gebaly became the first female judge to be appointed to Egypt’s supreme constitutional court in 2003.
Last week, Maya Morsi addressed an audience at the launch of National Project for Developing the Egyptian Family, saying that women’s empowerment and investment in girls are key to population growth control.
She stressed the importance of educating girls, and training them to have skills “ in order to create more job opportunities.”
“This is the Golden age of Egyptian women,” she said. “We will be capable of eradicating child marriage and all forms of violence against women with genuine political determination.”