On September 21, 2020, H.E. Wafa Bani Mustafa participated in the regional online policy dialogue organized by the Euro-Mediterranean Feminist Initiative entitled: Combating violence against women and girls and promoting women’s rights in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bani Mustafa spoke about women in decision-making places and pointed out that according to the statistics of the (Women in Politics) map issued by UN Women and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, 90% of heads of state and government are men, and less than a tenth of the countries are led by women, where there are only twenty  governments and states headed by women,  Arab women are none of them.  She indicated that women represent 50% or more of ministerial positions in 14 countries and that there is no Arab country among them, that 76% of parliamentarians are men, and that the percentage of women who head parliaments is 20.5% in 2020. She indicated that the United Arab Emirates ranked first in the Arab world and fourth in the world in the percentage of women’s representation in its parliament, where the percentage of women’s representation in the UAE’s parliament is 50%, and that Jordan had a rate of 15.4% of women representation  in its parliament, and indicated that in December 2018 Bahrain elected its first female speaker of the house, Fowzia Zainal. She indicated that the achievement in education is not commensurate with the modest political and economic participation of women, and stressed that discrimination leads to economic losses as gender equality would lead to an increase in GDP by 3.15 trillion Euros, according to European Union statistics. She emphasized that one example of the success of women in decision-making places is that countries led by women such as New Zealand, Germany, Taiwan and Norway were able during the Corona pandemic to overcome the crisis and record relatively fewer deaths than other countries. She spoke about the initiative to protect women from political violence launched by the National Democratic Institute in cooperation with the coalition of women MPs from Arab countries to combat violence against women.

She pointed to the most important lessons learned from Covid-19 pandemic, as the crisis revealed injustices in all societies, so the most vulnerable groups were the ones most affected by the pandemic, and from here the need for special measures to help women emerged. And that there is an urgent need to review the timeframe for implementing the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, including the fifth goal, especially the target related to ending violence against women, in addition to reviewing the commitments of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), especially the Three Zeros. She also indicated  that Covid-19 emphasized the need to go to what is called smart spending by countries and rebuild budgets based on new priorities, the most important of which are spending on health, education, infrastructure, especially in terms of digital, and social protection. She stressed that Covid-19 emphasized the urgent need for countries to build an organized system of data and information and establish what is called national information banks for various groups in order to use them in the right way so that there is complete information about everyone. And that it is necessary to look at two things, first: ensuring people’s rights, which is very important, and secondly: ensuring access to these rights. She added that Covid-19 crisis revealed that crises limit women’s ability to avoid violations, put victims in an environment that lacks appropriate services, and that governments’ response plans must include (putting women’s safety first).

She indicated  that the absence of Arab women from the first executive positions became evident and continued during the pandemic, and this led to the absence of women’s voices during the pandemic, so the heroes appeared whereas the heroines did not appear. She stressed that what we need to come out with in the end is to find a proactive plan to confront the challenges that women face in crises, and this requires us to to pay attention to important elements, which are preparedness or early preparedness, the ability to adapt, and finally reaching the stage of recovery. She indicated the importance of response plans to provide safe access to sexual and reproductive health services as well as combating  gender-based violence, especially for the most vulnerable groups during periods of crisis.