Statement of the Syrian Arab Republic By Her Excellency, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban Minister of Expatriates At The Non-Aligned Movement Ministerial Meeting on The Advancement of Women  Putrajaya, Malaysia

9-10 May 2005

:Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban

Madam Chairman Allow me first to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to the Malaysian government and to the ministry of women and family and community development and to you personally for the excellent organization and generous hospitality in hosting this important meeting.

Madam Chairman:

Although the motto of Beijing Conference and all the ones which followed in many capitals of the world have been "equality and development' and despite the great importance of these two elements we have to acknowledge at the outset that they should have been preceded by a very important requirement which is 'peace' because without peace there can be no equality and no development. I came from a region where the drastic suffering of women is caused by the absence of peace and by the absolute lack of security and stability resulting from occupation and settlement. . Btselem The Israeli Organization for human Rights said: Every time the Israeli army destroys the home of a suspected Palestinian militant it leaves behind it 12 people on average without shelter. Those twelve are women and children Every time a child is killed, a woman is killed, a house is destroyed, peace, development and equality become further away and more difficult to achieve

The first condition women need is to be safe in their own homes with their own children and family before they can exert themselves to achieve equality and contribute to the process of development. In reality occupation and armed conflict have constituted the major impediments which hindered development in our region; Reality proved that under occupation people can not proceed with their economic activities to enhance the living standards of the family. To give you two examples from our region. Arab women in both Palestinian occupied territories and the Syrian Golan Heights undergo the utmost human suffering either because of the loss of children or because of the inability to see the loved ones or because their houses are being destroyed by occupying forces and in all such situations women are the only ones who try to provide hot water, food and the means of living to the family. I would like to mention here what Waknari Mattie, the Kenyan beautiful woman who was awarded the Noble Prize for peace when she was asked: 'when do you think democracy will prevail in Kenya she retorted by saying: what is important is the quality of life in my country; to me democracy is about the quality of life people live'

The recent calls for the empowerment of Arab women had been used as a means to attack Arab culture stressing the assumption that Arabs in general are unable to cope with international development and their attitude to women is an evidence of that. What I would like to stress here is that Arab women were the first ones to call for women's equality and independence. Zaynab Fawaz wrote a letter to a conference of American women in 1892 asking them not to confine their role to domestic issues. One of the first business women in history must have been Khadija, the wife of the prophet Muhammad more than fourteen centuries ago. This does not mean that the position of Arab women today doesn't leave a lot to be desired but they are in the same boat with their Asian, African and American sisters.

Arab women are no less capable to achieve their own equality and independence once Foreign occupation leaves them the time and energy to concentrate on what matters most to them which is equal opportunity and excellence.

The women in Syria are actively involved in all aspects of the economic, social and political life but what we are concerned about is the percentage of their presence in decision making positions, The percentage of women in decision making positions has been 10% for the last 15 years in most countries of the world despite the fact that the number of qualified women in various fields has dramatically increased over the same

period of time. What we need to discus today is how these qualified women could make the front leap in this regard.

Finally, what we hope this Meeting will establish is a follow up mechanism and develop strategies and policies to be adopted by our governments and our civil societies with a specific targets to be achieved within a time frame

Thank you so much for your kind listening