[1] These indicators suggest strong gender-based disparities in areas of reproductive health, economic functioning, and overall empowerment.
Reasons for inequalities are numerous; social norms and attitudes, economic pressures, religious beliefs, and structural forces all help maintain the status .
[7] As political participants, women have been active in the revolutions of the Arab Spring, as well as subsequent protests and debates regarding the future of their nation.
[8] In early 2014, equal rights and protections for women were included in the newest Egyptian constitution, reversing many of the restrictions imposed by the more conservative Mohamed Morsi regime.
Although women are not guaranteed a minimum number of seats in parliament, laws forbidding discrimination based on gender was included.
These numbers have increased dramatically over recent years as Egypt has made greater financial investments in this sector.
The 2006 Human Development Report (HDR) estimated that only 15% of female household heads in rural areas were literate.
[12] Egypt has made significant progress in narrowing the primary and secondary education gap between boys and girls.
[13] The World Bank reports that women face far more hostility in the overall business environment, citing a finding that showed "...female-owned firms in Egypt report needing 86 weeks on average to resolve a conflict through the legal system, compared to 54 weeks for male-owned firms.
[15] A study by Ghada Barsoum suggests that there is a difference in reasons to pursue employment between unmarried and married women.
[20] Adolescent fertility rates in Egypt were 44 per 1000 in 2012, significantly higher than most economically developed countries and likely a result of early marriage and lack of universal access to family planning services.
However, lack of widespread public awareness, discreet testing options, and social stigma may contribute to an underestimation of cases of infection.
UNICEF also reports that the number of young people aware that HIV infection could be prevented with condoms dropped from 22% to 13%.
[26] A January 2011 survey of youth stated the 13.5% of women felt that sexual harassment was the most serious risk they face on Egypt's streets on a day-to-day basis.
Tahrir Square has been the site of many such assaults, with 150 attacks against women by groups of men reported during the single week of Hosni Mubarak's ouster.
[29] Again, during the removal of Mohamed Morsi and the subsequent social unrest and jubilation in Tahrir in 2013, 80 women were subjected to sexual violence by mobs of men in one night.
In early 2012, members of Egypt's upper parliamentary house engaged in victim-blaming, with one representative saying, "Women contribute 100% to their rape because they put themselves in that position.
Studies from 1995 to 2005 showed no decrease in prevalence, though some methodological inconsistencies in surveys between those years makes direct comparison somewhat complicated.
The study showed that in 2005, 33% of women reported having been subject to some form of physical violence by their current or previous husband.
More severe – and far less common – forms involve complete removal of the genitals and sewing up of the vagina until only a very small hole remains for urine and menstrual blood vacate.
FGM is seen by all major international human rights organizations as a violation of a woman's bodily integrity and sexual health.
While these numbers are lower than older age brackets, they are largely consistent with the 10- to 29-year-old group surveyed in an identical 2008 study.
The treaty seeks to define discrimination against women as a human rights issue, create a plan of action to address gender disparities, and to hold nations accountable.
Countries that ratify the convention pledge to take strong steps in order to end discriminatory practices and violence against women.
Egypt made the following reservations:[40] The new constitution, ratified in January 2014, appears to take a different approach to women's rights as they relate to CEDAW.