Egypt has achieved many great strides in legislation on women’s rights, Maya Morsi, the head of the National Council for Women, said at a seminar on women’s rights in Egypt, Bahrain in Qatar on Wednesday.

The seminar took place on the sidelines of the 39th session of the International Council for Human Rights in Geneva.

Morsi, who chaired the seminar, said that women in Egypt currently “hold 25 percent of leading positions and decision-making circles,” adding that “the 2014 Egyptian constitution laid down the principles of citizenship in terms of rights and duties,” and that “2017 was the Year of the Egyptian Woman, during which the 2030 Women’s Development Strategy was put in place.” 

“The 30 June revolution in 2013 preserved women’s rights from being lost as a result of extremist groups’ ideologies,” Morsi added.

The seminar also discussed the forced displacement of the Tawergha tribe in Libya and the process of revoking citizenship from members of the Al-Ghufran tribe in Qatar, as well as terrorism and its impact on the human rights situation in Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Egypt.

 “Out of some 200 judges, there are only two female judges serving in Qatar,” commented Said Abdel-Hafez, the chairman of the Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue, an Egyptian organisation.

“The UN Committee on the on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called on Qatar to define racial discrimination in its legislation,” he said. 

“Article 12 of Qatar's Nationality Law, no. 38 of 2005, recognises racial discrimination against non-Qataris, while Article 16 of the same law affirms the unequal status between citizens of Qatari origin and naturalised citizen,” said Abdel-Hafez, also a consultant to the human rights committee of the Egyptian parliament.

“The Qatari National Human Rights Committee, a government committee, has reported blatant discrimination between men and women in Qatar,” Abdel-Hafez concluded.