Ta’a Marbouta: The Secret of Your Power”: A National Campaign on Women’s Empowerment

Under the Social, Economic and Legal Empowerment of Egyptian Women Joint Programme, UN Women Egypt Country Office joined forces with The National Council for Women, UNFPA, UNDP and the Swedish Government to develop a national campaign to support and empower Egyptian women. The campaign highlights the importance of women's participation and inclusion in all economic, political and social areas while highlighting the struggles that they face in different fields just for being women. The creative idea of the campaign is based on the additional letter added to the ending of Arabic words, mainly adjectives, designating them as females. This letter is named “Ta’a Marbouta” and “Marbouta” means constrained. That’s why, the slogan reads “Don’t Let a Letter Confines You, It is the Secret of Your Power”.

UN Women primarily contributed to three Public Service Announcements (PSAs) tackling issues faced by and women in Egypt.  The first was on the issue of women being forced by their families and community to take the role of a housewife only and to put all her professional and academic aspires on the side.

The second and the third PSAs tackle the issue of women being perceived as incompetent in certain positions that are usually male dominated in Egypt such as transportation and politics. Those three PSAs were aired during madan 2016, as part of the rest of the campaign.

Overall, till October 2016, the campaign has reached over 5 million views on social media and 8 million views on television. More than 100 celebrities and public figures endorsed the campaign including Mme Gihan Al Sadat; former first lady and Dr. Haifa Abou Ghazala; Assistant Secretary General, League of Arab States. On Twitter, more than 300 tweets were posted on the campaign and around 316 posts on Instagram in less than one month with both male and female audience supporting the campaign. Also, the impact of the campaign has been amplified on the news with more than 80 articles and videos posted on online media outlets.