‘Citizenship: the Road to Reform’
hosted by the
Arab Women Organization
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
Landmark Hotel
Ladies and gentlemen,
Sabah el kheir,
Today I meet again with you the members of the Arab Women Organization, a few days
before International Women’s Day. I wish you success with the events marking that
day and let me also say that I am delighted to be amongst you once again!
Being an Ambassador to a country gives you the privilege to meet not only with senior
officials, ministers and members of the Royal family in Amman but also to visit other
towns and villages and meet lots of other people. I have been in your country now a bit
over 6 months and I was able to visit already different parts of the country. What made
these visits special are the meetings I had with many different people, to see how they
live, to hear what they think and how they see their future. Many of these encounters
were with remarkable and courageous women.
In the Jordan Valley; Ghor Fifa, we were served by ‘Um Nedal’ with the most appetizing
home baked bread from her own Bakery. Neighbors and people from the next town
could buy daily fresh bread and she was making a living for herself. In Mafraq, I met
with talented ladies making handcrafts. In Russeifa, members to a local community
center were proudly displaying their production of foodstuff…
I can give you many more examples.
I will not dwell at length on the fact that - to my surprise I admit- at each and every visit
to see and celebrate the accomplishments of the hard work of women I would be first
welcomed by tribe leaders, governors or directors of community centers who are all
men! The point I like to make though is that in each of those communities, I could see
women making a difference. Their dedicated work stems from their belief in belonging to
their environment, so they strive to improve, develop and change. Enjoying a sense of
security creates motivation, responsibility, loyalty, and ladies and gentlemen,
citizenship!
Generating a sense of ‘citizenship’ in people is essential for a society that wants to be
successful. Trends like violence, corruption, crime and many other impediments to
development are considerably diffused. In contrast, dialogue, legitimacy, public
participation and rule of law elements leading to peace and prosperity can flourish.
Moreover, citizenship can only be developed when people enjoy equality and nondiscrimination. Equality and non-discrimination certainly regarding gender and regarding
the civil rights and full citizenship of children.
My country firmly believes in equal rights, opportunities and respect for everyone. We
do not just believe but try to act; the Netherlands is ranked number one in the UN
Development Program/Gender Inequality Index out of 186 countries. That does not
mean we are perfect, ask Dutch women, but I personally have witnessed enormous
changes for the better in our society in the last 4 decades. I have seen the opportunities
for Dutch women change, seen them improving. Nowadays, women in my country have
so much more opportunities to choose how they want to live their life than my dear
Mother had. Once again all is not perfect, but better yes.
Because we believe in the importance of Gender equality we consider it an integral
element of our HR policy. Not surprisingly, the Netherlands was also one of the
countries who presented specific recommendations on women rights to Jordan during
the Universal Periodic Review last October in Geneva. Helping civil society to achieve
their goals in this field is one of the main targets of our Embassy.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Achievements so far are commendable and the government of Jordan’s announcement
to grant access to public services to children of Jordanian women married to nonJordanians is certainly a step forward. I am confident that with your dedicated efforts we
will see progress and I hope the achievement of full equal rights to all Jordanians and
that all Jordanians shall be equal before the law with no discrimination between them in rights
and duties even if they differ in race, language, religion or gender’.
I wish you lots of success!