February 1, 2008

Dear Friends,

January 15 advocacy round table

On Tuesday 15 January, the Together for Family Development Network (Joining Hands, Egypt) held a round-table discussion for NGOs and parliamentarians about the proposed amendments to the 1996 Egyptian Child Law. In addition to TFD’s article about inclusive education for children with disabilities, other amendments raise the marriage age for girls from 16 to 18, raise the age of criminalizing street children from 7 to 12, address female genital mutilation and sexual abuse—areas that strengthen and protect the rights of children.

We are now advocating for passage of the amendments in their entirety. The National Council of Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), the organization responsible for compiling and finalizing the proposed amendments, is holding meetings in Cairo to educate the members of the National Democratic Party (Mubarek's party) about the amendments. Our roundtable was to educate members of the opposition parties and independents. Dr. Nabil and colleague Adel Badre spent a great deal of time, working late into the evening to contact the parliamentarians visiting offices and homes. They ended up with commitments from five members of parliament to attend the roundtable.

Representative from an NGO commenting on the proposed amendments.

Participation also included NGOs working in areas related to the amendments. As it turned out, January 15 was the day before President Bush's visit to Egypt. As a result, the five parliamentarians all ended up staying in Parliament so they could protest Bush's visit, but we went ahead with the roundtable. After the NCCM attorney, Councilor Khalil Mustafa Khalil, provided an overview of the amendments, then two people commented on the process of developing the amendments and on the amendments themselves. Finally, Dr. Alaa Sebeh, our mentor and children's advocate from Save the Children UK, facilitated the general discussion and suggestions from NGO representatives. At the conclusion of the program, a report of the discussion was read back to participants.

The next day, Dr Alaa called to ask our network coordinator to put the report on the discussion into the form of recommendations that could be sent to former Ambassador Moushira Khattab, now head of the NCCM, who at that time was in New York City. The recommendations compiled were emailed to Ambassador Moushira the same day; we heard from Councilor Khalil that she was pleased and impressed with their substance.

Dr. Alaa Sebeh and NCCM Councilor Khalil Moustafa Khalil.

As a result of the success and impact of the roundtable, Dr. Nabil, our network coordinator, was invited to participate in a strategy planning session at NCCM to plan other roundtables throughout Egypt. Others at the planning session were from major international NGOs, such as Save the Children UK, UN Children's Fund, Plan International, the and Canadian International Development Agency. So Dr. Nabil found himself in prestigious company, and he came back from the meeting proud of what TFD has accomplished. For TFD, the outcome of the meeting was that TFD members in Minia and Beni Suef will conduct additional roundtables with parliamentarians from those areas—both NDP, opposition parties, and independents. These will take place by the beginning of March, so everyone will be busy. We will follow up with the five parliamentarians who were to attend the Cairo meeting and have a smaller program with them. So far, due to the events on the Gaza-Egypt border, we haven't been able to set a date to meet with them.

Amendment process

It has been hard to get a clear idea of the process of how the amendments move through parliament. I understand that the amendments have been reviewed and approved by the Ministry of Law and have gone to the prime minister for review. I think he then gives them to the heads of the Shura and People's Assembly who schedule them for debate. Councilor Khalil said the debate and the process to take the amendments through Parliament will take about 10 days. NGOs have not yet seen the final version of the amendments, as NCCM does not want to release them to the NGO community before members of Parliament see them. This is all a major learning process for TFD.

Sincerely,

Nancy Collins

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 324