Laura Bush speaks out for women's rights in Mideast
SOUTHERN SHUNEH, Jordan -- Laura Bush yesterday challenged a region dominated by men and strong tradition to allow women into the political process and workplace, saying equal rights are essential for democratic progress in the Middle East.
The president's wife, making a high-profile speech at the World Economic Forum, said new freedoms granted to the women of Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Morocco prove equal rights are compatible with Islam and Arab culture.
''Women who have not yet won these rights are watching," Bush said at the King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Center on the banks of the Dead Sea. ''Freedom, especially freedom for women, is more than the absence of oppression. It's the right to speak and vote and worship freely. Human rights require the rights of women. And human rights are empty promises without human liberty."
The speech drew polite, although unenthusiastic, response.
Bush was making her first trip as first lady to the Middle East, which included private meetings with Jordan's King Abdullah, Queen Rania, and Arab youths. Later in the day, she toured Jordan's sacred Mount Nebo, where God is said to have led Moses to see the promised land across the Jordan River.
On a desert hot day, Bush stood atop the mountain to survey the Dead Sea and the dusty valley below. The haze clouded what otherwise is a majestic view of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, and Jericho from the mountain's peak. ''It's a beautiful place to come," she said to reporters.
She concluded her day with a lunchtime discussion with six Jordanian women at Haret Jdudnba, considered the finest restaurant in Madaba, a small Christian community near Nebo.
Bush, on a diplomatic mission to try to improve America's image in the Arab world, told leaders gathered for the World Economic Summit that education and women's rights are two pillars of a vibrant democracy. In a 20-minute speech, she said world leaders must allow students, men and women, to study freely in modernized education institutions.
''As freedom becomes a fact of life for rising generations in the Middle East, young people need to grow up with a full understanding of freedom's rights and responsibilities: The right to discuss any issue in the public sphere, and the responsibility to respect other people and their opinions," Bush said.
She will visit a local school with Queen Rania today.
Critics of the administration say the White House should be providing more financial aid to the region to promote education and business opportunities.
Bush's visit highlights changes, however slow, in the Arab world. Kuwait's parliament recently granted women the right to vote and run in national and local elections.
About 40 percent of the 8 million Afghans who voted in the past election were women, while Iraqi women went to the polls for the first time in January. In Morocco, women successfully fought the government of King Mohammed VI to change the century-old Family Code that provided men superior legal rights.
A report released at yesterday's event by Freedom House, a nonpartisan group that studies democratic reforms, nonetheless, amplified the institutional and social obstacles facing women throughout the Middle East. The study, based on interviews with men and women throughout the Arab world, found discriminatory laws and social mores have created a massive gender gap not unlike the one America faced until well into the 20th century.
All the 16 countries (and one territory) studied, save Saudi Arabia, call for equal rights in their constitutions, but few offer them in daily practice. Women receive inferior education, are sometimes subject to harsher penalties than men for crimes, and face discrimination in nationality and citizenship laws.
Yet it's the family laws that many experts consider the biggest impediment to progress. In much of the Arab world, husbands have authority over their wives' ability to travel and work and can divorce them without reason. Saudi Arabia, which does not allow women to vote, received the lowest grade possible from the group.
