United Arab Emirates Calls for More Support to Women of Developing Countries – Cites UAE Efforts

The
UAE has called for continuous international efforts to boost political and
financial support to help improve the condition of millions of women in
developing countries and to help them overcome serious challenges,
including poverty, diseases and armed conflicts.

The UAE also called for more support for Palestinian women and the
Palestinian people, in general, to expedite action to find a lasting
solution to the Palestinian issue to bring an end to the sufferings of the
Palestinian people brought on them by the ill practices of the Israeli
occupation, which is of great concern to the UAE.

The UAE Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations, Ahmed Abdul Rahman Al
Jarman, on Monday made the statement in the UAE’s address during the 52nd
session of the Commission on the Status of Women on Item (3) entitled
follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and to the special
session of the General Assembly.

The Commission, which began its sessions on February 25 and will continue
until March 7, is reviewing what had been implemented so far from the
recommendations issued by the 4th International Women’s Conference.

The session addressed a number of issues posing serious challenges to
women, including closing education gender gap, equal labour market access,
inequality and HIV/AIDS, global gender architecture and other issues on
great concern.

Al Jarman said the UAE had made great strides in gender equality and
eliminating all forms of discrimination against women, adding that women
are now being represented in some of the highest levels of legislative,
executive and juridical posts.

The new Cabinet included four women ministers and women occupied 22 per
cent of the seats in the Federal National Council and 20 per cent of the
diplomatic field. The law of the judicial system had been amended to allow
women to participate in it.

The government had set up seven national mechanisms that were directly
concerned with women’s and children’s affairs, including the Family
Development Foundation, set up in 2006 to develop and monitor
implementation of women’s advancements strategies.

The Foundation recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the
United Nations Development Fund for Women to strengthen the Foundation’s
capacities and update the national strategy for women, he stated.

He pointed out that the UAE had achieved concrete results in gender
equality in many areas, such as education, health care and employment. He
said the percentage of girls enrolled in primary school is equal to that of
boys, while in higher levels of education, girls surpassed boys in terms of
enrolment.

On job opportunity, he said women form 22.4 per cent of the total workforce
and occupy 66 per cent of public-sector jobs, 30 per cent, including
leadership and decision-making posts.

Regarding economic empowerment of women in the UAE, Al Jarman said the
government had set up the productive families programme to help women who
do not work outside their homes.