National Association for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms NADRF was established in Egypt, Cairo on August 16, 2005 and registered under the ministry of Social Solidarity. NADRF has set up its mission statement which is mainly concerned with monitoring and documenting human rights violations, the promotion of women’s rights and gender equality, and the empowerment of women and youth at political, economic and social levels.

Main area of work of the organization

Elections Monitoring:
NADRF participated in monitoring presidential and parliamentarian elections in 2005, which highlighted clearly the problem of weak political participation of women in the whole electoral process, whether they are voters or candidates, which returns to several problems including weak economic conditions and lack independence.

Political Participation for Women:
NADRF developed a program for the promotion of political participation of women and the preparation of leaders having capacity to take part in political life actively to build a base of skilled women capable to hold lead posts and take part in elections as candidates and other aspects of participation in public life. NADRF has managed to get funding for this program from international donors such as National Endowment for Democracy NED and Middle East Partnership Imitative MEPI. The program continued for 4 continuous years and targeted all Egypt’s governorates, in particular Upper Egypt.

In the course of the implementation of political participation program, NADRF noticed that women suffer strongly from poor economic conditions, which rendered them dominated by men and community as they are restricted in stereotypical roles as wives and mothers. That is why, we decided to develop a new program for providing legal aids for vulnerable women to help them claiming and defending their rights.

Combating Human Rights Violations:
NADRF has also developed a program for combating state-sponsored torture and mistreatment in detention centers. In the course of this program, NADRF has established a a unit for receiving complaints of tortures from all Egypt and providing the proper legal action. In addition, this unit monitors and documents torture cases in annual reports on the condition of torture in Egyptian detention centers to be published on NADRF’s website and be sent to all concerned bodies.