Remarks on Women Rights in North Africa and the Middle East

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Lithuania News Conference (Reuters Soundbite)

Vilnius, Lithuania

July 1, 2011

Today it is North Africa and Middle East experiencing its own season of change and we especially have to work together to ensure that all people, women, as well, as men are part of that change.

And for our part, we are supporting on the ground efforts to increase women's participation in political process. In Egypt, we have seen steps both forwards and backwards: women played an absolutely critical role in carrying out Egypt's revolution. And yet Egypt's constitutional committee does not have a single female member. When women marched to celebrate International Women's Day, they were harassed and abused. As one woman put it, the men were keen for me to be here when we demanding that Mubarak should go, but now that he has gone, they want me to go home.