 اعنا شكراً لكم من كل you our audience wherever you are we would like to greet you from the Dead Sea in Jordan the world economic forum for the Middle East and North Africa is being held our day session is going to focus on female issues and we will be asking questions about the situation of women in the العرب الغالب و الضحاد الدقائق التي سنطرق بجabbة مرأة حول الممور بقياس البقائق اليوم سنعود في بعض الأسئلة محاولة إلى سلسلة الغالبة السلسلة التي تجعل الغالبة من الغالب إلى الآوشن بعد العرب العالمة وال기도رض الغالب وإنه هو our pleasure to host various panelists whose primary course is to uphold the case of women. So let us welcome our Excellency Minister of Social Development of Jordan Reem Abou Hassan, her Royal Highness Amira Altawil from Saudi Arabia and Khalid Al-Khudair and Imad bin Musa. Let's start off with the Minister Reem Abou Hassan. As I have mentioned today we will be talking about the situation of women in the Arab world, particularly in the public and private sectors. When it comes to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, what is the situation or status of women at present day, particularly in the public sector since you present the ministry? In the name of God, I would like to welcome all the guests to Jordan. As far as the situation of women in Jordan is concerned, I'd like to start off by talking about the legal framework or context, whether we're talking about the international or domestic frameworks. The right of women is preserved under treatments and conventions that were signed by Jordan, conventions with the ILO and human rights conventions, as well as in the constitution of Jordan that has maintained and safeguarded the right of work for all men and women after the age of 16. Job equality and gender equality in the assumption of public positions are both safeguarded in the constitution. However, this legal context does not necessarily mean that it is translated entirely in reality. The economic participation of women is only 14%, and I have to admit that this is one of the lowest gender participation in the world. There are various challenges standing ahead of us, and those challenges have led in the past and might continue to lead to this low level of participation. One of those challenges is the social beliefs. Furthermore, women have assumed roles throughout all the walks of life, whether it is the executive, for example, you can see that there is only one minister in the executive in this current cabinet, but there have always been women assuming public positions. When it comes to the legislative, we have 19 MPs out of 150 MPs, and I think we have seven senators out of 50 senators. In the judiciary, the percentage of female participation is 10%. Of course, we are looking forward to increasing these percentages because having one minister, female minister or woman minister does not mean that the economic participation of women has increased. We want women to assume decision making positions, particularly when it comes in the middle management. Then we will be able to say that women have assumed the role in the hierarchy of positions that would enable her to participate in the decision making process and to combat the prototype or the typical ideas against women in this society. When it comes to women participation in the public sector, your Excellency, the minister, you have mentioned some modest participation. Let's turn on to her Excellency Amira Altawir, her Highness, sorry. You are the owner of Al-Waqt Foundation that is interested in developing female or women participation, and you are the board member of an initiative by Sheikh Hamouza to create more positions for women. You are interested in increasing women participation in Saudi Arabia. What do you think of what you have heard? Do you have heard about the position in Jordan? What do you think of the position of Saudi women when it comes to the assumption of high ranking positions in the public sector or in the private sector since you manage a private company or corporation time agency? In the name of God. Yes, the situation of women in Saudi Arabia has developed over the last two years given the various decisions that were adopted in the executive. Her participation in the economy has risen, but the unemployment rate is 12%, and 85% of that 12% is composed by women. The Ministry of Labor has laid out around 12 programs to develop the role of women in the workplace, and those programs have enabled us to employ more than 160,000 Saudi women in 2012. However, the most daunting challenge is not only the legislation, but it is the concept of mentality because we know that our society is very conservative and is very private, and it is very difficult to change concepts in Saudi Arabia to support women in their workplace or a larger contribution, and this usually happens because of the internet and studying abroad, and indeed there are legislations that are supporting women, but it is a matter of time. Many conservative men would say that we don't want women to work, we want to maintain her dignity. That is not true. They are not maintaining her dignity while when they prohibit her from working, there are many programs or programs of work that allow women to work in various fields that would maintain her dignity. So I think the main reason is fear from women and not for women because they are afraid of women and we know that women are stronger than men in our society in our world because they are a minority, and the minority usually wants to prove itself. As far as I'm concerned, not every single woman has to work, but any woman who wants to work should be able to work. Thank you. That was a very clear message. So now we know that women are competing with men in Saudi Arabia. And let's remain with Saudi Arabia and turn to Khaled Al-Qudair who is a very vehement supporter of women rights, particularly when in Saudi Arabia. He has three high degrees from Canada and you have been the founder of GLOW Work in order to create job opportunities for women in Saudi Arabia, sir. In your view, how is the situation now in Saudi Arabia in terms of employment of women? Is there an opening up for women in the job market? Has the mentality changed in Saudi Arabia? In the name of God. Let me tell you my story how I started off my career in Saudi Arabia. As soon as I came back from Canada having finished my BA and having graduated in three degrees Human Resources, Marketing and Commerce or Trading. I was taken by surprise when I found out that I would not be able to find an employment if I did not know the job market and I did not know corporations and that affected me personally so I knew that I had to work on my information and my knowledge but at the same time I knew that I had to work through connections and contacts what we call WASTA in Arabic and I was able to assume a position because of this WASTA my sister three years after I graduated from Canada graduated from Canada and she came to Riyadh I told her I have a job for you and I hope that you will be able to work with me within one week she told me I'm more dignified than you I will not allow for anyone else to give me a position because of WASTA or connections and she waited for seven months looking for a job and of course she was not able to go and drive on her own she would need to go with a driver and we had this segregation situation where offices were segregated for men and women and she would submit her CV to the security office and that CV would not even come to the human resources office and then I wanted to find out what were the problems I as a young man had problems with seeking a job how about women two or three years ago we did not have any statistics about women employment or even youth employment or the rate of unemployment the ministry of labour under an initiative or rather a degree from the king about a program called incentive salary for job seekers and I thought that that program half is was just throwing money down the drain to cover up the problem however maybe there is a story that should be told the ministry of labour has created that program in order to collect statistics now we have a database with various women 1,600,000 unemployed persons in Jordan in Saudi Arabia from the years 20 to 45 and 40% of them are holders of BAs or bachelor degrees and the ministry of labour has thus drafted new legislation such as women in the retail sector and that would create more jobs in the coming three years the minister has also set up a guidance council for women participation in partnership with the private sector and is about to launch guidelines for women's participation in the job market which would facilitate things for women to find and for corporations to create opportunities for more women participation in the job market some of the new legislations about the women work dictate or stipulate for the fact that corporations are obliged to employ a certain percentage of women or to have certain sectors entirely composed of women such as the front office of the retail of the retail business which is 100% women shops with women supplies and make up products and in the coming three months the accessories shops and even the jewelry shops are going to give more female representation not only in the front office but also in decision or leadership positions of such shops and such corporations that was a very long path that was taken by the ministry Mr. Khaled do you believe that these laws that were passed in Saudi Arabia would be able to push for more representation of women within corporations or do we need to change mentalities before we draft laws yes we need to work on changing mentalities and this is something very very important for us to support women participation in the private sector following graduation women think of working as teachers in the education or in the public sector and in the private sector what we are trying to do in the ministry is to make the private sector more conducive to female or to women participation in the past 20% sorry 2% was only the percentage that was assorted to women participation and to Saudiization percentage which is to turn jobs to Saudis rather than to foreigners in Saudi Arabia we found that all this is related to education because we are brought up in Saudi Arabia and in some other Arab countries believing for 20 or 22 years believing that we are managers managers of our drivers and our housemaids and we believe that we will be managers even in the job market so the expectations are very high for some of our young people there is a gap between education and real job opportunities miss the moderator yes there is such a gap and we will talk about it later on in order to talk about certain initiatives when it comes to the private sector and NGOs but before that let me turn to Mr. Imad بن Musa who comes from Dubai but he is originally Moroccan and he is the director general of Coca-Cola Middle East and he's been there for 14 years you have started officer in marketing in one of the world's largest companies in the world but you have started off in Morocco now you are the general manager of Coca-Cola in the Middle East Coca-Cola Middle East Region in your view what is the difference between the situation of women in North Africa and the challenges and the situation of women in the Middle East particularly in the Gulf countries of women across the Middle East and North Africa women are challenging the status quo they are demanding equality and they call it for women empowerment not only economically but also politically and socially I think it's important there is an undeniable fact that the cost of living is rising and that is putting more pressure on household to diversify revenues so a revenue stream of one family member is not enough with the growth and to keep up with the needs that families have and hence the role of the female member of the family is going to increase and is going to put more pressure on the society and this is something that we have seen in the western world 30 and 40 years ago I think the educational attainment in Middle East and North Africa is also improving we see more and more women into the job market the ratio however of women in the labor force as mentioned by Madi Al Wazeera is very low I think the average across Middle East and North Africa is around 20% now that average is slightly higher when it comes to Morocco or Tunisia and Turkey but it's also very high for instance in Indonesia which is another Muslim country on the Asian continent which is 38% so that give us a little bit of a benchmark I think according to the gender gap report that was issued 2 years ago the gender gap is narrowing so if we look at for instance the UAE the literacy rate among women is higher than what it is among men we've also seen some very bold and progressive moves Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid the vice president of the UAE and the juror of Dubai made a decision to make it mandatory for women to be represented in the board of directors of local government entities in Dubai Emirates and the other point that I would like to say also I think it was mentioned by Khalid is the college enrollment of women has made fantastic progress over the last 20 years and there is an interesting statistic that shows that actually it does not necessarily relate to the economic development of a country in fact college enrollment for women is the same in the US it is in China or in Brazil what does say is there is a massive influx of talents coming into the market and the private sector as well as government and NGOs have a fantastic opportunity to really tap into this talent pool that is existing I mean if you drive around Lujad you see for instance Dura University which is a fantastic facility of the art technology 10.000 Saudi women talented future leaders certainly will be there for the markets and it's for us as a private sector and government to really tap into that opportunity شكرا جزيرة لك then سيد عمد بن موسى thank you Mr. عمد بن موسى and here we end the first part of our discussions thank you Mr. عمد بن موسى your Royal Highness the Princess Your Excellency إلى المرٰ شكراً والمر積مين� خالد شكراً لك لكم في وسط للمساقون الذي يأتي من المساقين حين العالم المساقين في حياتهم لمدلسة الأفريقية يبقى بحد واقل من الوصول أما جزادينا في إتكال السلوك نحن سنقوم بك again the audience of France 24 and now we are in the second part of the discussion about the status of women in the Arab world it's the reality and the challenges they face in access to the labour market and to senior positions in the public institutions. Your Excellency Princess Amira Tawil as we mentioned at the beginning you are fully informed about the situation and the status of women in the Saudi Arabia. However, what are the solutions and initiatives taken by women themselves inside Saudi Arabia in order to advance the status of women particularly in the economic sector and the private sector. The Saudi women in general are leaders by their nature. We always find them keen to work. We have women in the business sector and also women work in managing funds and in education and the health sector where you find women in all these sectors and now you can see women in politics and in the legal sector. So there is a lot of progress for Saudi women. However, commenting on what Mr Khaled said the problem is that there is no relation between education and the labour market. So you find that 70% want to work in education while 40% want to work in the public sector. Only 6% want to work in the information technology and only 10% in the financial sector. As a country other than oil we rely on IT and finance. Unfortunately, the educational system must teach entrepreneurship and they must inform the students about the positive aspects and negative aspects of sectors. What are the needs of our country where the good jobs lie? So there is a need to orient and direct students and job seekers so that their expectations would meet and would be commensurate with the labour market needs. I see this as a huge gap. However, women are pioneers and the government has proposed solutions but I don't expect that this is a problem only in Saudi Arabia but all over the Arab world. There is a concept that men should work and be the breadwinners and women should stay at home and care for the children. If you want to demand real equality then women must contribute to build the society equally with men if they really want real equality just like the societies in the west. So women should not only care for their homes and their children but also they should contribute to building their societies and their countries and this is important for us. Such concepts should change in your opinion. The main reason lies in the gap between education and the labour market. This is at the public sector level but as a private sector what are the initiatives you take in order to change this male perception. There is a simple word in English being there. We are there. We manage our companies and we manage our money. We do not rely on anyone else. We are self-reliant. Saudi women are present and we hope that they will assume even more senior positions. But do you believe that enacting laws and governmental decisions alone are capable of changing this stereotype about women whether in Saudi Arabia or in other Arab countries? What is the role of the civil society and the non-governmental organizations? Everything starts by laws whether the beliefs change or not unless there are laws that are supportive of women then these concepts and beliefs will not change. So we see that these laws are changing especially after the Arab Spring. They are changing all over the Arab world and there are new laws being introduced. More importantly there is more openness at the level of knowledge and economics and the strength and the presence of women. Arab women are present and strong. However the society must be more supportive of women not only by financing or through laws but also by accepting her socially and accepting her role in labor. So this might be a difficulty that you face in defending women in Saudi Arabia. You mentioned a very important point when you spoke about this timid participation of women in the labor market and even in the public sector in Jordan and in other Arab countries. The presence of women inside governmental departments is very modest. For example in Morocco there is one minister in Tunisia. There are two women ministers. What are the obstacles and problems that you face now as a woman leading a ministry at the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in order to take initiatives and implement them on the ground? Thank you. First I wish to comment on what her royal highness the princess said about the gap between the labor market and education. This is a challenge that all Arab countries are facing and I don't want to elaborate any further. However regarding Jordan as we speak about a level of education that is very high for women this is no more a challenge but as royal highness also spoke about laws. Laws are important but they are not sufficient even if the law speaks about the right of women to work. There are other issues related to the work of women including the role of the Jordanian state in putting a system for the maternity fund in Jordan. Women participate in the household income and it is a main income. Therefore there is an obligation by the state to help women in having a maternity leave so that she would not be an obstacle and a cause for discriminating against her in employment. And also it relates to daycare centers. The law is there but it requires mechanisms for implementation and now Jordan is working on establishing daycare centers in the public sector before the private sector in order to enable women in raising their children. When a woman is working while she is married this is a reality that cannot be reversed. The issue is about developing mechanisms that would help her to implement her role as a mother and as well as her role as a productive citizen. The third point is about the right to work. It is there however there is a wage gap. There is no equal pay and this is something that was considered in Jordan and a study was conducted and it turned out that women require to work at an additional 64 days in order to get equal pay for the equal work. And this is something that must be addressed by law first and then through implementation mechanisms. The last point is related to policies about harassment in the workplace. This is an important issue. Some may say that the reason for harassment is the access of women to the labor market. This problem exists and it has to be addressed through the penalties and the labor law and also even regulations or the bylaws of companies. Another challenge is the right of women in the family laws. This has a direct impact on the ability of women to work and her access to decision making positions. If we want women to be productive and to access leading positions then there is a need to guarantee her rights inside the family. Which means that her right in inheritance which is a right that is guaranteed in the Holy Quran but women are being forced to give up their rights in inheritance. And in this regard Jordan interfered so that women do not give up their property that she inherited from her father or from her family through social intimidation. The rate of women who own lands in Jordan does not exist 4% and we want to increase this rate because often owning land is the mean to get a loan and to use it as collateral for financing investments. When we speak about women we also speak about persons with special needs. We should not speak about women only who are capable to work but when we look for the presence of women we also need to consider the persons with special needs and how we can activate the role of women whether disabled women or other women in the labour market. Your Excellency the Arab countries witnessed the Arab Spring and some countries continue to live through this period. To what extent have these revolts and this commotion? To what extent has it contributed to advancing the role of women and advocating the rights in general? Do you believe that the mentality has changed? Did the Arab countries succeed in giving more rights to women or has her status deteriorated? I'm not speaking particularly about Jordan but in general about Arab countries. I believe that Arab Spring is a double edged sword regarding women. On one hand the role of women as a citizen and part of the people and the importance of her popular participation in decision making is very important but hence the importance of transparency and social justice however on the other hand regarding the issue of the rights of women. What we are witnessing now are calls for giving up achievements made by women throughout the past years and now many women movements are discussing a means of maintaining their achievements rather than moving forward and I believe that this is a problem because women participation in the labour market or in politics change is going to happen and possibly for economic reasons however if the women movement would suffice to maintain its achievements rather than moving forward then this means that we are not going to achieve what we want to achieve. Mr. Rehman Moussa you have listened to what the minister has said and Royal Highness the princess has said about the obstacles as a director general of one of the largest companies in the world. There are initiators definitely to advance women and to defend their rights and for gender equality in the workplace are the most important difficulties you face in such initiatives particularly in the Middle East. I think large corporations and private sector in general has a leading role to play and we all as large corporations need to lead by example. We have a very ambitious vision for the Coca-Cola Company to double our business by 2020 and one of the three priorities on the people side is to develop an advanced women leadership position Our 2020 vision is supported by a very firm belief that women will play a transformative role in shaping the global economy. There is no doubt about that. We have a global women initiative that we launched five years ago and I would like to share with you some facts. 40% of the global workforce is women and it's increasing 40%. 50% of the 7 billion people on this earth are women now that's the new news but that also means 50% of our consumers as a consumer product company are women. Every household product that gets into the house be it on the food, on the beverage on the beauty care, household care, healthcare is actually purchased by women or largely influenced by women. 70% of those household products that get into the house are influenced by women and that's a very important insight for us to keep in mind. So the conclusion is not only it is the right course of action morally speaking but it also makes social and economic sense for our business not only to reach those consumers and customers but also to tap into the talent pool that we discussed earlier today. The other element internally the initiative that we're doing is the global women initiative inspired by our chairman Mr. Murtakant. We've put a council of 17 very talented women executives of the company and basically that share the same passion with our company and our chairman and basically they've been tasked to develop recommendations in order to advance women in the leadership position. Now what does that mean is the focus should be around recruitment, retention and retention is a big challenge for us especially when it comes to women recruitment as well as development advancement. You can only retain good talents being a man or woman if there is a clear career path that will lead into a leadership position. I'd like to share with you some metrics. We like to say that we only manage what we measure so measurement is important. A pipeline representation of women went from 28% to 34% globally in the last 5 years. The next pipeline of leaders is now at 46%. 46% of our workforce in the next pipeline are women so very close to the gender parity similar to this panel where we have two men and two women. Female representation in key assessments and development programs went from 21 in 2007 to 49% last year. So one associative of two is women in terms of development program and if we look at the external hiring and we do work with Mr. Al-Khodair in Saudi external hiring of senior levels went from 13% in 2007 to 41% last year. So we tripled the external hiring of women globally within Coca-Cola company. So that's what we do internally in terms of advancing women leadership position. I do also want to share with you a very interesting project that we started. I think it's one of the most ambitious ones. You might have heard about it in line with our vision 2020 called 5x20. We have made a commitment publicly as a Coca-Cola company to empower 5 million women by 2020. And that's a very, very bold target that we've set ourselves. That means specifically that we would like to empower those women in small business around the supply chain of our company and our system. I think we discussed about that. There is a unique set of economic and social barriers. I think legal barriers can be broken. We can fix them, but the social barriers are the biggest hurdle I see within the Middle East and North Africa. Barriers are like business skills, social acceptance, leadership training programs as simple as that, and access to financial assets and solutions. I think we sometimes underestimate that element. So there is no better investment than women to support economic growth. I think that if you look at the 5x20 since 2010 when we announced it, we've made good progress in India, the Philippines and South Africa. Very recently we announced the expansion of that program into China, Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt. So we're expecting by the end of this year to empower 300,000 women. We still have a long way to go, but I think the progress we're making is very important. And the biggest challenge as we empower those women across the supply chain of the company is to make sure that we have the right balance. I want to make sure that we're developing the right programs and that have the right impact on the community, but also makes business sense that the company also get the yield from those programs because the ecosystem has to be sustained. The ecosystem has to work across the value chain. Now the second element which is I think more relevant to the Middle East and North Africa region is a partnership that we're very proud of that the Coca-Cola company has signed with UN Women in 2011. It's a partnership over three years with a budget of four million dollars to empower more than 40,000 women in three countries. So this is our pilots Brazil, South Africa and Egypt. In South Africa, for instance, we're empowering women to be involved in the retailing business or in the distribution of our brand. And I think as a Coca-Cola company, partnering with them will enable them to have greater access to financial solutions as well as developing training programs and leadership skills. In Brazil, we're working with farmers. 13,000 women will be in the farming and in the recycling business. And lately in Egypt, 4,500 women will be basically empowered through small-scale distribution centers and kiosks. So if you see a couple of kiosks in Cairo very soon, one of those will be driven by this initiative that we've done with the Coca-Cola Company and the UN Women. Since the Coca-Cola has a secret recipe, it seems that you also have a secret recipe for defending women through such initiatives. Mr. Khaled Al-Qadir, you listened to the interventions. In your opinion, how do you see the future since you are a sincere advocate of women rights and you have experience in Saudi Arabia? How do you see the future? Are you optimistic? Do you see that the government policy and the civil society are capable in the few coming years to guarantee good status for women, particularly in the Arab societies? I hope and I see a good future for women in work, particularly in Saudi Arabia. There is interaction by the private sector and even women are defending the rights of women to work. In the future, as I expect, particularly for Saudi Arabia, I feel that it's going to be a benchmark for other states regarding work of women, especially through the initiatives that the government and the private sector are taking. Investing in women education and training and rehabilitation for the labor market and in such a short period of time shall build a promising future. I will give you an example. We have around 15 universities that teach women in the kingdom. These universities did not have co-op or internship programs for employment last year only. 80% of these universities have launched rehabilitation and training programs and they are mandatory for women in universities. This is something that was lacking in the past. We have conducted a study one month ago and it turned out that 96% of the female university students want to work. The future is promising. And I hope that you will hear good news about the kingdom regarding the labor market and women participation. And I hope that I will be alive so that I'll see my sister and all our other sisters part of the labor market. This is what we hope your Excellency Minister Abu Hassan. We have three more minutes for ending this discussion. In one minute please, what is your message that you can address to Arab women in light of the current political and economic conditions in the region? Well, I would like to mention that Herroyal Hainas said that the women in Saudi Arabia are strong. I think that the women are strong not only through their culture and knowledge but through the method of leadership which is being enjoyed by women in particular. The ability to listen to all parties. The ability to work in a teamwork spirit. These are traits which are very much needed in the business world. So these traits and the characteristics that are enjoyed by women the ability to listen, the ability to take care of others and to give others a really very important trait. And in fact transparency is very important and it is very much needed in the business community. Therefore the Arab women should stand fast. The achievements that have been achieved cannot be given up under any circumstances. We are together in this endeavor. Women are supporting other women and we shouldn't forget that men are supportive of women. So working as one team would enable women to overcome this crisis. Yes, true. And I think that Mr. Khalid and Mr. Raimad are the strongest supporters of women and women's rights. Your Herroyal Hainas Atawil. In one minute what is the message that can be conveyed to Arab women as the director of an institution which is discovering those talents and skills. I cannot add more than what has been said by Her Excellency the Minister but in fact in the Arab region we do need coordination organizations. There are great efforts in the private market as well as in the public sector and in the civil society but we don't have this focal point which is coordinating among all these efforts. In fact we are trying to establish a partnership between the private market and the public market and in fact we have supported 25 SMEs in the past. We are reaching a huge number of youth in the Arab region and we have the Kiva Initiative. This Kiva is an electronic website for micro-finance in order to support men and women in the Arab region. We wanted to have a database as well as IT systems that would group all the youth that have initiatives in order to be supporting to those young men and women. And in fact within one year Kiva received credits in order to support SMEs. So if we have more of these organizations we are quite sure that we will be successful. Thank you very much all of you. Your Royal Highness. Your Excellency. Mr. Ahmed and Mr. Khalid. We would like to thank you very much for this debate which is about women par excellence. Thank you very much for the audience for following up this debate from the Dead Sea in Jordan where we have the web meeting for men in the region. I would like to convey my thanks and appreciation to all of you wherever you are. Thank you very much indeed. Not from the Arab world. Thank you very much. I would like to take a number of questions and after that I would like to give the floor to the speakers. In fact I was surprised because we didn't speak about the class ceiling as well as the promotion of women. In fact sometimes women go into the labor market but they are not promoted. I have seen a number of women but I haven't seen those women in the senior management. So in fact the question is how can the corporations work in order to get the promotion of women into the senior management. There is a question here. English. My name is Emma Dickey. I am the group general counsel for Averda which is a waste management company and I am the lawyer for a top New York law firm and I am actually the only female working in corporate law for the entire Middle East. And it is 2013 and that is disturbing. So it is not just a problem for Arabic women but women globally. A couple of years ago and this is a comment. I don't really like your views on it. A couple of years ago I was working at a law firm and I had an intern and she was living in Dubai. She is an Emirati girl. And she was studying law in the UK and somebody came to her school. She went to an all-girl local school and somebody came to her school just before she was about to finish and they presented something on career options and it wasn't until then that she became aware that she had the opportunity to go to university or anything like that and she told me that and this was sort of in 2011. She told me that her and all of her friends were going to finish school and get married and have babies and they actually weren't even aware that they had the opportunity to study or go to work or anything else. And she asked her parents if she could go and study and they were very happy for her to do this. So that's how she went on to study law and I think one of the big issues of course it's legislation and that's a massive thing but it's also awareness for women to know that there are amazing opportunities open to them and supporting women and sort of sharing knowledge. So I'd like your view on how we can possibly do that. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. We are going to take more two more questions before we answer them. I work for the Middle East magazine. I was very interested in and I also had to say about the UAE initiative in large companies to employ a certain percentage of women and I just wanted to ask other members of the panel whether they thought that was a feasible option in Saudi Arabia and Jordan and indeed other areas of the Middle East and just to follow on from what the previous speaker said please don't think that equal pay exists anywhere in the world. So I'd like to ask the other question. Thank you very much. Another question if you may. My name is Talat Al-Alawi from Palestine. My question is for her royal highness as well as the Jordanian minister in many of the several society organizations as well as the alliances that are working in order to advocate women's rights in the employment market. In fact, we have a problem which is related to that and I would like to say that in some sectors we have 37% of women employment and in other sectors there are 11% and in certain sectors it is 0% of women employment even in the open societies in which women can work in all and in various sectors regardless to the percentage of employment there are certain sectors that are closed in face of women or there are certain sectors such as the contractual work as well as other sectors the women employment is 0%. So in fact in our alliance we have a problem I would like to ask what is the percentage through which we can judge that this society has gender equality with regard to employment. Is it the percentage of 30% or 20% because if we are aspiring for achieving 50% of women employment cannot be achieved with some of the problems that I've mentioned. Thank you very much. There is a question by the lady. My name is Dinah Curly so I'm going to ask in English. I work as the editor-in-chief at WAMDA which is an online portal for entrepreneurship news and I've also recently launched email entrepreneurs and business women throughout the region to discuss their challenges in a very frank manner. And so my question is for Princess Amira and possibly Mr. Ben Moussa although it applies to all of you can you speak to the more psychological side of the challenges that women face when they might be holding back from pursuing leadership positions and when it comes to encourage women to actually step up and pursue leadership positions. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. So we have a number of questions that have addressed to her royal highness and the Jordanian minister. There are cultures that are deeply rooted in the societies. Do you think that the legislations and the laws can overcome such cultures or not? There is also another question that is generalized by men rather than by women. The Jordanian minister thank you very much indeed for the questions with regard to overcoming the traditions and the customs I'm quite sure that the legislations and the laws cannot be the only tool through which we can change the culture but laws and legislations can change the situation in a way that would lead to overcoming with regard to the fact that the culture is governing us. No, the laws are regardless to the respect and the enforcement of law we are looking forward to the role of law and the state of institutions but unless the legislations and the laws are pushing towards a certain goal we won't be able to succeed but I think that customs and traditions can be overcome and in my talk I spoke about giving up the right to the inheritance by women this is one of the customs and traditions but in fact laws can help us achieve our success and this has been stipulated in the Holy Quran therefore we have to have legislations and this can be achieved in partnership with other institutions so that we have creative solutions that would fulfill the needs of women the government and the legislators alone cannot put the appropriate mechanism but through other interventions from the seven society organizations as well as the feminist movement we can have creative solutions that would fulfill the needs of women in a better way with regard to the topic or the question about the best percentage or the appropriate percentage of women employment which was raised by the I believe that what is more important is the critical mass so the 30% to 33% in any parliament if is given to women this is a critical mass that can cause change but in the employment market I think that it is different it is for sure that it is important to have the quota or the affirmative action in order to make sure that women can reach the senior management but with regard to other issues which are related to the employment who are talking about rights and individual and the collective rights I think that for women they should have their own chances they should be able to choose what suits them and in fact getting to the labor market does not mean but in this regard we have to talk about different aspects and as citizens have their own rights and they have duties so the question is how can we empower them in order to enjoy the rights thank you very much Your Excellency I have only 5 minutes before concluding this debate Your Royal Highness do you have any comments on the questions that were raised and what we find in our region something that exists everywhere but does not exist as much with us is the circles of women supporting each other of course you will have criticisms from the society I have had it you will have it from people who are close to you from people in your environment at your working environment at your home everywhere you go you hear criticisms and you will not continue facing those criticism with high self-esteem knowing that you've done what you believe in now the good thing about it is that I work with a couple of other women we establish a network of women leaders also the Chamber of Commerce is an amazing network of women leaders in Saudi society so I have circles of leading women that I see and I'm inspired by unfortunately we don't celebrate but we've accomplished many things in the public sector in the private sector in Saudi alone we have we have who is amazing business woman one of the top in the region and those are the role models to set for a young woman talking about breaking the glass ceiling is that when you see someone who was able to make it with all of the difficulties surrounding them that inspires you to achieve more to reach your goal with women who are going through the same circumstances we are going through thank you very much Mr. Ahmed there are questions that are related to the position of women after entering into the labor market and inside corporation it's critical that we understand that there is a business case for empowered women inside the organization that everybody will benefit and the point that Samul Amira mentioned regarding the networking I think it's so important I think organization have to enable women to have peer networking opportunities where in the case of Coca Cola not only we bring at least twice a year women leaders together and in fact over the last three years we've had three major events in Dubai specifically but we also invite our friends from government and from public sector to come and inspire these women and the friends come in from the Middle East but also from outside the Middle East I think that is the most powerful thing and I think as leaders we have to demonstrate that we have to walk the talk and build the business case always so that those psychological barriers are basically broken and that we can go through it I think it's important that we leaders of organization meet in the public and the private sector have to showcase why it makes sense because we have shared with you some of the statistics I think we as in Coca Cola believe that this is the only way forward we don't have other alternatives that empowering women and making them part of the around the same table where all the decisions are made شكرا لك سيد بالموسى روبما شكرا لك سيد بالموسى روبما شكرا لك سيد بالموسى روبما شكرا لك سيد بالموسى شكرا لك سيد بالموسى سيد بالموسى and the kingdom right now we currently studying allowing women to work as CEOs and stock listed companies in the kingdom and this in itself the leadership of the kingdom sees that things have to work from top to bottom and having women as success stories such as Her hyvä check actually adds a lot of value to women وحيث يتكلمون بأنهم لا يعرفون ماذا يفعلون وماذا يفعلون وماذا يتكلمون سكسستوري كما راينس يكلمون سكسستوري is the key factor for us in the Arab world and I hope that through media channels such as France24 we are able to share these success stories and also change perception about the kingdom when it comes to women Saudi women and what the labor market is doing to affect women and Saudi Arabia شكرا لك إذا سيد خacking your excellent sidi jordanian minister your royal highness amira and mr. amad thank you very much for all the panelists and for the people present with us and for taking part in this debate thank you very much and I'm quite sure that the exchange of ideas would continue outside this hall and through this conference and even the way ahead thank you very much indeed