STRASBOURG, September 30 (RIA Novosti), Daria Chernyshova - Three years after a wave of revolutions dubbed the "Arab Spring" swept across the Middle East, European parliamentarians on Tuesday once again drew attention to the deteriorating gender equality in the post-uprising Arab world during the PACE fall session.
"Gender equality is an indicator of a country's degree of democratization and of its resolve and capacity for the inclusion of all citizens without discrimination of any kind. Likewise, breaches of women's rights often act as an alarm bell, revealing threats to the rights and freedoms of everyone," the draft resolution proposed by rapporteur from Belgium's Socialist Group Fatiha Saidi says.
"In fact, with the possible exception of Morocco and Tunisia, where at least there have been constitution or legislative reforms, in the majority of countries the position of women has actually deteriorated," member of Ireland's Fine Gael Olivia Mitchell said during the debate on women's rights and prospects for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
The draft resolution stresses that women's status on the southern shore of the Mediterranean has a mixed record. Morocco and Tunisia have significantly progressed in this area thanks to "creating or consolidating democratic institutions," while Egypt, "struggling to restore stability, and Libya, on the brink of civil war, are no further ahead."
The report by Saidi stressed that Morocco and Tunisia have been main interlocutors of the Council of Europe, and "these countries can play an exemplary modernizing role in international forums such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation by proving that it is possible to advance towards gender equality without renouncing one's traditional cultural and religious roots."
"The situation of women is often an indicator of the vitality of democracy and the situation of the society," a French Member of Parliament, Marie-Jo Zimmermann, said, adding that the situation with the women's rights has improved in the countries that made the biggest progress in attaining democracy.
The Arab Spring was a string of uprisings and civil wars that rolled across the Arab Middle East, starting in Tunisia in December 2010. Within three years, the revolution spilled over to Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and triggered violence in Syria and Bahrain, with lesser protests reported in Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Sudan, and even Saudi Arabia.
In 2012, Parliamentary Assembly adopted Resolution 1873 "Equality Between Women and Men: a Condition for the Success of the Arab Spring." The resolution made several proposals for the Middle Eastern countries to undertake measures and reforms in order to improve the status of women and eliminate all forms of discrimination against them.
