SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC Part I Overview of achievements and challenges in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment Continuing the national effort on behalf of women’s issues, which in the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR) began as long ago as 1970, the Government reaffirms its commitment to the Beijing Platform for Action. The Platform for Action calls for enhancement of the status of women and the removal of all obstacles to their effective participation in all spheres of public and private life and endorses the concepts of gender equity and the empowerment of women as means to sustainable development. To that end, the Government of the SAR has taken measures to implement the outcomes and recommendations that emerged from the Beijing Conference. In 1995, as an initial step, it established the National Committee on Women, the membership of which includes representatives from various ministries, organizations, trade unions and associations concerned with women’s issues. Since that time, it has gone on to establish women’s committees within many of these associations and other entities, such as the Women Workers’ Committee, the Women Engineers’ Committee and the Women Lawyers’ Committee, while units, services and agencies for the advancement of women have been set up in the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, the State Planning Agency and the Central Statistics Bureau. In 1996, the National Committee on Women joined forces with government agencies and community organizations concerned with the advancement of women to draft the National Strategy on Women in the Syrian Arab Republic to the Year 2005, which the Government subsequently adopted and integrated into the Ninth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005). That plan included, for the first time, a section devoted exclusively to the empowerment of Syrian women, and its provisions were duly translated into national and sectoral action plans containing monitoring mechanisms and indicators to measure progress. During the period 1996-1997, the National Committee implemented Phase I of the SAR’s post- Beijing project, and went on to implement Phase II during the period 1999-2001. The lead executing agency for that project was the General Women’s Union. Phase II was aimed at upgrading national capacities and building institutional capacities, mainstreaming a gender perspective, strategic development, restructuring the National Committee on Women and drafting its statutes, activating the role of community associations, conducting research on gender issues, and the like. At the same time, the issue of women’s empowerment came to occupy an important place in Government statements during the Presidency of Mr. Bashar al-Asad. One such statement referred to “continued support for positive steps to enhance the role of Syrian women, develop their contribution to the building of society and reinforce their intellectual and social development.” Another spoke of “protecting children, strengthening the role of the family as the basic building-block of society, developing the concept of family planning, updating education and vocational training, activating employment offices, reforming the wage system, expanding health and social services, providing better care for orphans, the elderly, disabled persons and others, devoting attention to community associations and activating their role, and raising the 1 level of volunteer work in the field of social services.” These statements also revealed a concern to “amend laws that were clearly in need of amendment and draft new legislation.” The Ninth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005), for its part, stated that one of its general objectives was “to activate the role of women in the family and in society,” while its policies and prospective measures included (1) “greater participation by women in public life and decision-making posts,” (2) “eliminating the dropout phenomenon at the primary level” and (3) “heightening awareness of population and environmental issues.” One section of the Plan was devoted exclusively to population and the workforce. It formulated strategic objectives in the field of population growth and the empowerment of women, and it advocated the integration of population change into development plans. The most important of the strategic objectives were as follows: · More active and more effective participation by women in economic development, and a larger percentage of women in the workforce; · More active participation by women in the work of the executive, legislative and judicial powers; · A focus on the basic rights of the family, including both women and men; · The socio-cultural empowerment of women, and action to promote literacy among women; · Gender equality and action to enable women to exercise their rights and discharge their duties. The most important of the policies and prospective measures set forth in the Plan with a view to attaining the above-mentioned objectives were as follows: · Enactment of laws and regulations relating to reproductive health and women’s rights; · A more active role for the media in enhancing women’s awareness of all social, cultural and legal aspects of their rights and duties; · Elimination of the phenomenon of girl pupils abandoning school at the primary level. As regards women’s issues in sectoral plans, the general objectives and orientations have been translated into sectoral strategies and policies in various fields. Examples include the preparation of a rural women’s development strategy, a reproductive health strategy, and a draft national health strategy (2000-2025), which includes a section dedicated exclusively to the empowerment of women. The Tenth Five-Year Plan (2005-2010), which is currently in preparation, will be an extension of its predecessor as regards concern with women’s issues. It will be results-based, taking the Millennium Development Goals into account, but we should note at this point that those goals are not new on the SAR’s national development agenda, especially those relating to the need to reduce gender gaps in basic education, women’s share of the non-farm workforce, and seats held by women in national legislative assemblies. What is new, on the other hand, is that the Plan will use practical mechanisms to determine participation rates and will include provisions for follow- up and evaluation based on global indicators and standards. 2 Reverting to the matter of the achievements of Syrian women since the year 2000, we find that the most important of them was the issue of legislative order No. 330 of 2002, ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Many laws aimed at eliminating discrimination have, in fact, been enacted, including a law under which a working woman may bequeath her retirement pension to her lawful heirs (law No. 78 of 2001), and legislative order No. 53 of 2002, by which maternity leave with pay was extended (see annex 1 on legislation relating to women’s issues enacted since 2000). These legislative measures were debated in the People’s Council, which devoted particular attention to a draft measure on a proposed “Syrian Organization for Family Affairs”, which would play an important role in advancing the various aspects of Syrian family life and reinforcing the contribution made by Syrian families to the development process by fostering interaction between them and relevant agencies and institutions. After extensive discussion and many questions and exchanges of views, some amendments were made to certain provisions of the draft measure, and finally it was adopted in the form of a law establishing the Syrian Organization for Family Affairs (law No. 42 of 20 December 2003 – see annex 2). The State’s concern to achieve gender equity is reflected in its general budget, which provides funding for the Women’s Union, over and above the income that that organization earns by its own efforts. The budget also contains allocations for women’s units in various institutions, such as the State Planning Organization and women’s units in some professional associations, and an allocation for the Arab Women’s Organization (AWO) that covers 4.1 per cent of the Organization’s total budget. We should note at this point that there are a number of programmes aimed at reducing gender gaps, but their funding comes from a number of different agencies. The women’s literacy programme, for example, is funded partly by the Ministry of Culture, partly by the Ministry of Education, partly by the Women’s Union and partly by a number of international organizations. The enactment of legislation on the elimination of discrimination against women entails additional expenditures for the Treasury. The law allowing women to bequeath their retirement pensions to their legitimate heirs, for example, resulted in a 10 per cent increase in Social Security outlays. It is noteworthy that budget allocations for the purpose of promoting gender equity have noticeably increased since 2000. The budget of the Women’s Union, for example, increased by 67.32 per cent over the period 1999-2003, while the social development budget went from 21.57 per cent in 2002 to 44.56 per cent in 2003. The SAR is increasingly exposed to the cold winds of globalization, and national efforts to mitigate its impact, address its challenges and empower women are continuing, especially in the economic sphere. Since 2000, the SAR has been endeavouring to expedite the process of economic and administrative reform by enacting legislation designed to stimulate investment and create institutional structures that support the business sector. A national information technology strategy has been developed with the aim of making computers available to all. A number of programmes for bringing information technology to rural areas have also been developed, such as the rural knowledge network (“ReefNet”) project (see annex 3). Action to encourage the establishment of small business ventures by women has included the creation, in April 2003, of an institution known as “Mawrid” [resource] with a mandate to develop and activate the role of women in economic development (see annex 4).