Thursday, June 5, 2008

Bahrain: Drive to close gender gap

A NATIONAL plan to further empower Bahraini women will be the focus of a major conference next week. The two-day National Conference on Gender Mainstreaming in Development opens at the Gulf Hotel's Gulf Convention Centre on Monday.

It is being organised by the Supreme Council for Women (SCW) which has come up with a number of proposals, SCW secretary general Dr Lulwa Al Awadhi revealed yesterday.

Recommendations to come of the conference could eventually become law, she said.

"It includes activities focused on gender mainstreaming and improved access to justice, as well as increasing women's political and economic participation," she said at a Press conference yesterday.

"The conference will provide awareness and a definition on the terminology of gender."

The event is taking place under the patronage of His Majesty King Hamad and will feature 211 participants from government ministries, parliament, the Shura Council, civil societies, the private sector, media, religious scholars and youth societies.

The conference will also be attended by representatives from the Arab Woman's Organisation, Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organisations, United Nations Development Programme, Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, United Nations Development Fund for Women, Islamic Development Bank, Al Hariri Organisation from Lebanon, the UAE General Women's Union and the National Council for Women in Egypt.

"It will consist of lectures and panel discussions by more than 10 internationally renowned speakers and experts," said Dr Al Awadhi.

The speakers will cover topics on gender mainstreaming in Islam and in national plans and policies, indicators and statistics on gender, ways to raise awareness on gender and co-operation in financing and implementation.

"The conference will also showcase a number of Arab experiments, which will indicate the strong and weak factors in gender mainstreaming," she said.

"These experiments will help Bahrain know the challenges that face this programme and in turn find solutions to make it better."

By RASHA AL QAHTANI, Gulf Daily News

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