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By Taziz Hasairi.
Tripoli, 11 February 2014:
Women activists in Tripoli have endorsed proposals for a Women’s Supreme Council to be set up . . .[restrict]which would represent them, help empower them and campaign for their interests.
Meeting last week at Jamaladeen Almilady College for Music and Arts, they were divided, however, as to whether this was the right time to launch such the body.
The meeting, the second in a roadshow which had previously taken place in Beida and Benghazi, was organised by the Women’s and Children’s Affairs Office at the Ministry of Culture and Civil Society.
Deputy Minister of Culture and Civil Society Jamila Fallag stressed the importance of creating a Council in her opening address, noting that women were not being properly represented in Libya. The suggestion had been presented to the Prime Minister several times, she said, and he had asked the ministry to take it on board. That was why it was now promoting it.
However, she stressed, only Libyan women themselves had the authority to create such a council.
The women attending the Beida and Benghazi meeting the previous week had also agreed on the need to create such a body, Fallag said. The only issue, again, had been about the timing.
For lawyer and activist Amal Abu Gaegis, one of the most important roles of the council would be to represent Libyan women locally and internationally as well as developing and training women. It was also needed to create a database about women’s status in different areas of life around the country.
Among those attending last Wednesday’s meeting were the former Social Affairs Minister Kamla Al-Mazini, political activists Gaida Atuwati and Farida Allaghi, a number of Congresswomen as well as teachers, lawyers and ordinary housewives. [/restrict]
