Doha(NHRC: 8/3/2010) The 5th Euro-Arab Human Rights Dialogue Conference on Women Rights jointly hosted and organized by NHRC, the Danish Institute for Human Rights and National Center for Human Rights, Jordan, opened at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha this morning, (8/3/2010). Participants include prominent Human Rights decision-makers and activists. The conference focuses, as explained by H.E. NHRC Chairman, Dr. Ali Ben Smaikh al-Marry, in his opening speech, on one of the most important, sensitive and noble human rights issues-Women Rights. Mr. Marry added that, the conference also coincides with the anniversary of the centenary of International Women’s Day and with the thirtieth anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the fifteenth anniversary of Beijing Platform for Action.
In his speech, H.E. also said that the conference which started as a Jordanian initiative in 2007 serves as a podium for dialogue that aims at creating a euro-Arab partnership based on fruitful and positive cooperation between the two cultures rich in expertise, experience that contributed generously in building human civilization for centuries past and present.
H.E. also stressed that the two sides are in earnest seeking to enrich, consolidate and promote international cooperation as a means to achieving both regional and global stability, peace, justice and development.
H.E. then focused on UN efforts in extending more care and attention to Women Rights- women being one of several social fabrics desperately in need of care and protection.
After reviewing Qatar’s achievements thro’ NHRC efforts in this regard and in light of what has been achieved in this respect on the international level, women, he went on to say, still have a long way to go before acquiring full rights; specially so in the economic, social, cultural, public and political fields.
In conclusion, H.E. called for more support so as to facilitate the consolidation, promotion and protection of women rights both in Europe and the Arab world.
In another welcoming speech in the opening session, Ms. Fatoum Qudamah, President of the Advisory Council for Human Rights in Morocco (on behalf of the General Secretariat of the Arab human rights dialogue Union), said that the four conferences that preceded the Doha Conference, and the mechanisms emanating from them opened vast prospects for the European dialogue Arab. Ms. Fatoum has also reviewed the outcome of the meeting held between the two sides in Jordan on 22/7/2009 including mechanisms aimed at strengthening dialogue channels, the implementation of some of the proposals submitted by the conferences that preceded the Doha Conference. She also spoke about the results expected from the Doha Conference, and the future of European-Arab dialogue.
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