The Voice of the Working Women, this program works to link together actors in labour feminist movement to make it a vivid and promising movement for more justice and equality in the society. 

Permanent Conference for Working Women works as an entity for the Egyptian working women, an organizational form which is broader and more comprehensive than the other traditional forms, and an umbrella for all the organizational forms and initiatives acting in the field of the women's rights in general and the Egyptian working women in particular. 

It aims to empower women to act effectively in defending their rights, and to work together for removing all the barriers and obstacles that hold them from performing their role or reaching leadership positions in work sites or in civil society.

Driven by the importance of women’s position in society, the CTUWS adopts this initiative to improve women’s working conditions, maintain regular networking with women's issues, develop and strengthen feminist movement through cooperating with the biggest number of Egyptian and Arab feminists and women rights organizations to form joint visions, and support more democratic mechanisms.  

Who are we?

The Permanent Conference for Working Women is an entity that includes Egyptian working women and seeks to create an organizational form that is wider and more comprehensive than the widely known forms. It should be an umbrella under which all initiatives and organizational structures working with working women’s rights in specific and Egyptian women in general. The activities of the conference are launched from the Center of Trade Union and Worker Services that will act as a frame work for the organization of its efforts.

The Idea and the Content

The Permanent Conference for Working Women works to achieve a connection between an upcoming and promising women’s labour movement and activists working in the realm of women’s rights for a society in which justice and equality prevails in rights and obligations. In the context of this concept it adopts a working strategy that is based on socially and economically empowering working women by organizing them to consciously defend their interests and rights and reject the logic of delegation and acquisition. It also seeks to terminate the culture of discrimination and to achieve justice and equality in society including the requirements and consequences of that such as developing policies and legislations that allow women to express their interests and practice their rights.

Why The Permanent Conference for Working Women?

The idea of The Permanent Conference for Working Women was inspired in connection with the vision and the objectives of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services and its interest in tying the labour movement in its general framework and the sector of working women. The latest years in particular witnessed many violations directly related to working women and the consequential lack of legal protection inside the working environment and outside of it.

Because connecting women’s and human rights is among the rules that are agreed upon locally and internationally; because the concept of justice in itself requires societal awareness that understands these rights; and a conscious promotion of the fairness of the changes, we have an interest in the importance of the position of women in society and improving working conditions as well as connecting the issues that concerns them in a timely fashion. Additionally there is and importance in developing and strengthening the sector of working women through cooperation with Egyptian and Arab feminist and rights related organizations to formulate a joint vision and support more democratic mechanisms.

Stemming from this vision, the Permanent Conference for Working Women was launched in December 2013 out of the Center of Trade Union and Worker Services as a framework for the organization of such efforts. It is formed of an executive committee that includes a group of working women who are unionized in the different governorates of the Egypt to fight all forms of discrimination against women through a clear strategy that works on changing the social, legislative and political situation in the realm of working women. Additionally there should be a persistent work on formulating the necessary legal amendments from a perspective that takes gender into consideration. Likewise comes the Conference’s role to confront all attempts to exclude the working women from their role inside society and confront negative culture that obstructs her participation in decision making centers. That stems from our extreme belief that none other than the working woman herself will solve her problems.

Activities organized through the Permanent Conference for Working Women

• Women, work and economic participation.
• Supporting and empowering working women for active participation in unions.
• Integrating gender in union work.
• Elevating the abilities of working women through intensive training program.

Objectives:-

• Improving the social, economic and political conditions of working women.
• Rejecting any form of discrimination against women and denouncing it and fighting it.
• Confronting the culture of regressive trends that see that the woman’s place is in the home.
• Working on empowering women to enable them to achieve equality regarding women’s rights.
• Working on changing the legislative structure that obstructs equality in working rights.
• Activating the existing laws that have no way of being implemented.
• Empowering and supporting working women in union work mechanisms to prepare them for leading responsibilities inside their unions.

This is not all that the Permanent Conference seeks. It will continue working regularly and continually on all issues of rights and feminism that are posed, organizing for it and engaging with it to create a consciousness in society about women’s rights and formulating legal thought via a critical look onto the current situation of working women in society.