Page 4 - Elite-Issue14

ELITE ISSUE 14, DECEMBER 2019 PAGE 3

A Special Interview with Women Activist And Head Of The Egyptian Center For Women Right

Mrs Nehad Aboul Komsan

T H E I N T E R N E T G A V E W I N G S

T O O U R G I R L S

Interviewed by: Youstina Ebeid, Habiba Atef and Moustafa Mohamed -- Written by : Sherry Asaad

Upon graduation, and due to my interest in this field, I volunteered-
ELITE ’s team was honoured to meet Mrs Nihad Aboul Komsan,
besides my work in a Law Firm- in the Egyptian Organization of
Co-Founder and President of the National Center for Women. Mrs
Human Rights, which is the 1st organization for Human Rights in
Nihad graduated from Faculty of Law in 1992, and was chosen to
the Arab region. I worked there for 2 years, and at that time, a
be a member of the commission for the Constitution in 2014 as a
Women ’s support Unit was established in the organization, and the
representative of motherhood and childhood affairs, due to her
work we did in this unit expanded so much that it was like a parallel
work in the field of Women representation. She hosted the T.V.
organization within, from here, began the idea of forming the centre
show “Tales of Nihad, ” on Al-Kahera Wal Nas Station, and
to work on Women issues from many aspects, The first aspect we
recently, she has launched a program of online training for starting
worked on is providing legal aid for women who are incapable to
up Non-governmental organizations.
file law suits, either because of their fear of being in more danger

because of her legal action, or because she ’s unable to pay the fees,
- As a co-founder of the National Center for Women, what wer e the
so we worked on spreading awareness on the necessity of filing law
motives behind its establishment? And what were the main goals that
suits, and started filing law suits for women specially in cases of
you aimed to achieve back then? During my study of Law, the c rux
genital mutilation, and we worked for free for the incapable women,
of my studies wasn ’t focused on specific cases as such, it was more
Secondly, we worked on legislature amendments.
focused on the theoretical aspect of law, so I imagined the exis tence
Later on, the Centre was established in 1997, we started
of moral values that these theories called for, like Justice and
advocating for the increase of women representation in Parliament
Equality, but just as I graduated and entered the workforce, I found
to increase the efforts for legislature amendments that we pave the
out how different the real world was from what I have studied.
way for equality between the sexes, where during this time, there
Where reality was full of discrimination against Women on the l egal
were only 4 women in parliament, and so, on establishing the
level, and this discrimination was clear in different aspects, f or
Centre we worked on two aspects as well, the first was legal aid,
example, laws of personal affairs, women representation in the
and the second was political participation of women that wasn ’t
Parliament and decision-making units, job opportunities, and man y
an option back then, on these bases, we started doing field work to
other aspects.
grasp the true needs and intentions of individuals and work as a

channel between the people and decision makers, where we pu t
I’ve been interested in Public Work ever since I was in high
aside our previous judgements about the masses, and didn ’t try to
school, that ’s when I started volunteering in NGOs, meanwhile, I
blame them for their ignorance or encourage them to move against
read all the notable feminist books at the time, and during my
the political system -like many do nowadays- which is not what
college studies, I didn ’t focus on Academics only, but I also
advocacy is about from my point of view, on the contrary, I see
broadened my knowledge by reading the reports issued by the
advocacy as a way of creating discourse between the masses and
United Nations that were available in the library of the UN ’s
decision makers, with creating friendly relations on both sides.
office in Garden City.