Dubai: "Women have historically been under-represented in IT (information technology) and other scientific fields, but the situation has been changing rapidly over the past few decades," said Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of Foreign Trade at the inauguration of a forum on women in engineering, science and technology.
The forum is held under the theme for a "A Better Planet".
Shaikha Lubna called the event a robust step on the way of empowering woman in Arab societies.
"We have benefited from our enhanced access to educational and employment opportunities, support from government and the help of professional societies such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) that encourage women to join technical fields. I would thus like to take this opportunity to advocate a larger role for women in the IT domain particularly the development of e-government," she said.
Shaikha Lubna said the UAE constitution guarantees equality between men and women, and the country is signatory to many international treaties upholding the right of women.
Zayed's vision
"We ranked first regionally and 45th globally among 138 countries in terms of reducing gender gaps in employment, fulfilling our father Shaikh Zayed's vision," she added.
International experts took part in the forum and discussed the mechanism of supporting women working in engineering, science and technology fields, as well as the means of enhancing joint cooperation among women globally.
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