Peter Geoghegan was in Egypt with the assistance of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund. The fund was set up in memory of Irish-born journalist Simon Cumbers, who in June 2004, at the age of 36, was shot dead while filming for BBC News in Saudi Arabia.
As Egypt’s military rulers prepare to commemorate the first anniversary of the rising with a public holiday on 25th January replete with street parties, parades and outdoor concerts, young women have little to celebrate. Unemployed youth, the shabab atileen who played a key role in the spring revolt, remain isolated and economically marginalised.
Egypt is experiencing a massive ‘youth bulge’. Some 20 million people, almost a quarter of total population, are aged 18-29. Of these, over 25% are without work. The situation is even more acute for women: at just 18.5%, Egypt has one of the lowest female labour participation rates in the world. According to the US think-tank the Congressional Research Service, in 2010 90% of women were still without employment two years after leaving university.
The paucity of female economic activity is due, in part, to social and cultural factors, says Maia Sieverding, a researcher at Population Council in Cairo. ‘What is acceptable for a man and a woman to do is very different. Men are able to take any job they can get, women can’t.’
Remarkably over the last 20 years university-educated Egyptian women have become less, not more, likely to be in paid employment. For decades after the declaration of the republic in 1953, the public sector – with its Nasser-era policy of guaranteed jobs for graduates, short working hours and paid maternity leave – was the employer of choice of young women but state jobs have become scarce, while opportunities in the private sector offer scant social protection and even worse wages.
‘For many women it’s logical not to take a job at all, given what’s often on offer,’ says Lamia el-Sadek, a project manger at Plan Egypt. ‘But being economically and socially empowered is really important for young women, not just for the money but also for their own self-esteem.’
Plan co-ordinates a youth employability program called Forsa, which means ‘opportunity’ in Arabic. Intense courses are offered in areas with strong job prospects such as nursing and healthcare and customer relations. Importantly, graduates are matched with real world jobs.
More than 600 young people have graduated from Forsa since the program began. Among them is Marwa Abd-Nabg, a 23 year-old who holds a diploma in commerce but retrained as a nurse. ‘I was sitting at home for months after I finished college doing nothing. I’d just sit around and cry a lot,’ she says. Like more than 70% of Forsa graduates, the overwhelmingly majority female, Abd-Nabg now has a full-time job, in a local hospital.
Abd-Nabg’s father forbade her attending the protests in Tahrir Square that precipitated the fall of Mubarak but she supported the revolution and, despite its struggles since, believes the changes in Egypt are a boon for women. ‘Now we feel more confident to go out and get a job, to take responsibility for our own lives,’ she says.
Such optimism is not universal, however. After graduating from Forsa, Samar Mosad, 25, applied for positions across Cairo but, increasingly disillusioned, she now spends her days sitting at home watching television. ‘I want to work and to prove myself but the opportunities didn’t come,’ says Mosad, who wants to be a lawyer. ‘I can’t get a job because I don’t have experience'
One year on from Tahrir Square it’s difficult to say how much has changed in Egypt. The military retain an iron grip on the political process, albeit one that looks increasingly precarious; the economy, mired in a fug of corruption and joblessness, grew just 1.2% in 2011; and connections remain the only reliable means of getting a good job for both sexes.
The constriction of the public sphere under the Scaf regime has disproportionately affected women. A 64-seat female quota introduced by Mubarak ahead of the 2010 parliamentary elections was scrapped before last year’s vote. Instead parties were obliged to include at least one female on their lists – a ruling that resulted in incongruous photographs of fully veiled women on Islamic parties’ election posters but saw just three women elected in Egypt’s protracted plebiscite. Meanwhile, last March a demonstration commemorating International Women’s Day was attacked in Tahrir Square by a group of more than 200 men. According to the UN a staggering 50% of women in Egypt reported being subject to sexual harassment, with 8.7% of those aged 22-29 encountering harassment at work.
Often at the vanguard of the movement that toppled Mubarak, women face an uncertain future in post-Arab Spring Egypt. The electoral success of Islamic parties – having captured a combined 65 per cent of the votes, the Muslim Brotherhood and the fundamentalist Salafis are set to dominate the new parliament – has led to renewed questions about the role of women in Egyptian society.
Peter Geoghegan