National Guidelines in Syria - National Plans

• The Ninth Five Years Plan (Law No.54 of 2002)
• National Strategy for Women

The Ninth Five Years Plan (Law No.54 of 2002)

Strategic goals of the Ninth Five Year plan announced in Law No.54 of 2002 focus on the necessity to enhance the role of women in socio-economic development namely, through participation of women in decision-making and labour, and the establishment of women's studies centres to research the reality of Syrian women in all sectors. It also highlights:

a. The key role media can play in spreading awareness concerning the necessity to increase participation of women in development projects and programs at all levels, as well as opportunities for training, rehabilitation, and upgrading of working women's skills.

b. The importance of integrating married women and skilled women in the development process namely, by appointing them in important professional positions.

c. The role of nongovernmental organisations and their collaboration in the process of elevating the status of women and increasing their participation in the public sector.

d. The necessity of providing employment opportunities for rural women, enhancing their skills, educating them, and raising their awareness about the means to ensure safety of sustenance and agricultural production.

e. The need to develop lending schemes based on a review of selection criteria and through enlarging the pool of beneficiaries from among the poor.

f. The need to help rural/poor women by providing them with sewing machines and other sewing and knitting tools, and setting up of specialised workshops that train and employ women in these skills.

In order to realise the above-mentioned objectives, the plan (as stated in the law) recommended:

a. Proceeding with setting up child care and nursing units in the different parts of Syria.

b. Giving women opportunities to manage and run their own income generating projects through encouraging local community projects and rotating lending fund.

c. Raising women's awareness and educating them about social issues namely, cousins' marriage, early age marriage, and other traditions with special significance when it comes to promoting and/or obstructing development.

d. Direct support to the poor through specialized ministries (Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour, Ministry of Agriculture, National and Non Governmental Organisations' Planning Committee, International Organisations Specialized in Lending), in particular to poor families with a single source of income and women headed households, or to families with children with special needs and/or elderly persons are as dependents.

e. Increasing the number of technical education and training sessions for women conducted by the Women's Union (from 2565 in 2000 to 32,550 in 2005).

f. Design and implementation of projects and programs to put forth the process of exchange of expertise between women owners of a business.

g. Reinforcing legal tools to grant women their full rights with respect to participation in economic activities.

h. Guaranteeing equal access of women to job opportunities, along with access to land, resources, and funding.

i. Enhancing the level of technical performance among working women.

j. Ensuring support for small and medium scale projects undertaken by women through loans facilities with low interests rates, and feasibility studies of projects' costs and marketing opportunities of industrial and agricultural products (carpets, knitting, food production, etc.).

k. Increasing literacy classes conducted by the Women's Union from 1684 in 2000 to 2600 in 2005 in order to put an end of illiteracy at the level of the entire nation.

l. Changing the stereotypical image of women in school curricula into one which portrays women as active participants in sustainable development.

m. Encouraging women to take part in educational programs, and equipping them with the skills needed to maintain healthy families.

n. Implementing the Guidance program and encouraging girls to pursue their education after the elementary stages.

o. Raising awareness of women and men in matters of social and health education (reproductive health and family planning).

p. Introduction of the concept of gender in school curricula, and education of women about sexually transmitted diseases and ways to protect themselves from them.

q. Introduction of new majors related to women's issues and their role in socio-economic life in colleges' and universities', as well as technical schools' programs.

National Strategy for Women
http://www.arabwomenconnect.org/docs/SY_GWU_strategy.doc
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/confer/beijing/national/syrianap.htm

The strategy was designed to guide the advancement of women in the country through the year 2005. The author of this plan is the National Committee of Women's Affairs Post-Beijing.

The plan is based on the proposition that in order for the Syrian woman to progress, action is essential around 9 axes:

a. law,
b. society
c. environment
d. media
e. decision-making
f. economy
g. education
h. human rights
i. health.

These propositions followed a review of the Syrian Constitution and of Syrian legislation concerning women, as well as input from the General Secretary of the Socialist Arab Baa'th Party and of President Hafez al-Asad. In addition, the plan took into account the principles of the Articles of the Incorporation of Women's Federation, the Arab Plan for the Advancement of Women 2000, the Beijing Platform for Action and the conclusions of workshops organized by the committee.

At the level of legislation, the strategy aims to:

a. Put in force a more rigorous implementation of laws and legislation that safeguard the rights of women.
b. Raise people's awareness about the national constitution, election laws (including to syndicates and municipalities), labour laws, education, health, information, economy, trade and investment.
c. Review and amend discriminatory clauses against women in the Personal Status Law, the Nationality Law, penal law, social security law, insurance and salaries law as well as laws touching on agricultural relations and labour issues.
d. Educate people about the content of international agreements ratified by Syria which are of particular significance to the issue of equality between men and women namely, especially CEDAW.
e. Lobby for a legislation that enforces CEDAW.
f. Support and enhance legislation concerning the issue of violence against women.
g. Make available facilities aimed at empowering female victims of violence namely, through training and rehabilitation processes.

At the social level, the strategy aims to:

a. Eradicate poverty through providing more work opportunities for women, giving priority to the advancement of rural women through work and promoting their major participation in the processes of food security and production.
b. Provide social care for women with special needs in disadvantaged sectors and empowering them through economic activity.
c. Make the social security system capable of better serving workers and all their family members in an equal and efficient way.

At the level of the environment, the strategy aims to:

a. Render the role of women in environment protection plans more pronounced and effective.
b. Prepare and monitor legislation and systems that protect the environment through enforcing practices capable of reducing the negative effects of industrial, agricultural, and tourist activities on the environment.
c. Contribute to raising environmental awareness in society.
d. Enhancing knowledge about the relationships between human beings, the environment, and development by conducting studies about production, natural resources, consumption, and women's role in all these fields.
e. Training women on the use of modern technology, to enable them to manage resources, and maintain the environment.
f. Support family planning programs.

As far as women and the media are concerned, the strategy aims to:

a. Utilize the media as the primary means to publish, explain, and put in practice each of the programs conceptualized for each axis of the strategy.
b. Utilize the media to resist and put an end to practices that discriminate against women.
c. Enhance the role of women in the media.
d. Reinforce the role of the General Union of Syrian Women.
e. Make the voices of women and their opinions more heard through all means of the media.

At the level of decision-making, the strategy aims to:

a. Take all necessary measures to increase women's participation in the legislative, executive, and legal spheres, and decision-making positions in general (especially qualified women).
b. Make women's participation in decision-making reach 30% by the year 2005, namely, through collaboration with NGOs notorious for their capacity to integrate women in public life.
c. Incorporate women's needs in the national work plans and developmental strategies.
d. Confront and end practices that stand in the way of women's advancement in reaching decision making positions.
e. Monitor obsolete concepts, values and traditions, which perpetuate discrimination against women.
f. Create a women's research centre within the Women's Federation to design practical programs to solve pressing problems that relate to women, as they arise in society and family.
g. Incorporate human rights concepts and principles in the national curricula and in cultural and educational media programs.

At the level of the economy, the strategy aims to:

a. Facilitate women's access to employment, economic activities (including self-employment), ownership of land, funding (credit, and capital), facilities, and low cost services.
b. Improve women's performance on the job through training opportunities.
c. Encourage and help women to set up their own small and medium size businesses and adjusting market conditions in the interests of productive women.
d. Make an effort to assess women's participation in national production
e. Create a database informative of women participation in the private sector as part of the national endeavour to produce economically informative national statistics.
f. Introduce and facilitate rural women's access to modern services in agriculture.

At the level of Education, the strategy aims to:

a. Introduce concepts of equality between the sexes in the curricula.
b. Open new kindergartens.
c. Increase the percentage of children completing primary education.
d. Achieve conformity between occupations, vocational education, and interests of female participants.
e. Promoting and enhancing adult education.
f. Raising the level of awareness about the importance of women's training in non-traditional skills such as computers and modern technology.
g. Taking measures to enable women to play an effective role in social development and progress.

As for Human Rights, the strategy seeks to:

a. Publicise and explain women's human rights through media and educational programs to be disseminated through the media.
b. Create mechanisms to coordinate between community organisations, professional associations, and workers and trade unions.
c. Define policies and implementation arrangements to monitor and follow-up the implementation of women's human rights.
d. Design a joint plan between the Women's Federation, the community, professional and political organisations and trade unions to monitor problems related to human rights and establish gender-sensitive institutions to put in place a network of national mechanisms to prevent violations.

At the level of Health, the strategy aims to:

a. Improve the quality of health services namely, in rural areas, focusing on vulnerable groups i.e. women, children and workers.
b. Train required staff to offer better quality health services.
c. Pay more attention to women's health education and awareness, fight common endemic and venereal diseases, maintain mothers' and children's health, provide vaccination and maintain occupational safety.
d. Cooperate with governmental and non-governmental institutions to reduce mother's mortality and fertility through better services and increased social awareness campaigns on reproductive health and family planning.