Interview: Egypt's youngest female lawmaker urges further support for Paralympians

Egypt needs to provide more support for Paralympians as they face more challenges yet achieve more medals in the world competitions, Egyptian youngest lawmaker and former world taekwondo champion Caroline Maher told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"We're working in the parliament on a new law for the handicapped that will allow them to join the Faculty of Physical Education. How can we have Paralympians while we prevent people with disabilities from studying sports?" Maher wondered.

She added that the law for the handicapped was done and will be issued soon "and many relevant issues will be dealt with in the coming period."

The member of the parliament committee of social solidarity, family and people with disabilities also urged for equality between Paralympians and Olympians in terms of media interest and financial rewards.

Egyptian Olympians achieved three bronze medals in Rio 2016, two in weightlifting and one in taekwondo, while Paralympians achieved 12 medals including three gold, five silver and four bronze ones.

"Although we're proud of all our athletes who achieved medals in Rio 2016, I am more proud of our Paralympians because they face more challenges yet they have achieved 12 medals in Rio including three gold ones. They made us all proud," the youth lawmaker told Xinhua.

The 30-year-old lawmaker achieved about 120 awards in 39 countries since she joined the Egyptian national taekwondo team when she was 14, the top of which was that she was ranked third in the world in 2009.

She won Egypt's taekwondo championship for at least 17 times and was the first Egyptian, Arab and African female to be included into the Taekwondo Hall of Fame in the United States in 2013.

Her care for the handicapped started during her sports career when she camped with Paralympians ahead of competitions, and this is why she joined a group of youth in founding Helm (Dream) charity for helping the handicapped and later joined the parliament's committee of social solidarity, family and people with disabilities after she was appointed lawmaker by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.

Maher said that politics was not among her priorities and when she was appointed as lawmaker she started to look for the fields where she can be helpful based on her interests and experience, namely the handicapped and sports.

She added that forming a parliament committee for social solidarity, family and people with disabilities for the first time is an accomplishment itself and will be helpful for the coming generations.

"We started field visits to orphanages and old age homes to see what we can do for them generally and legislatively to make their lives better," said the youth lawmaker, stressing that her priorities are to to ensure the equal rights of all citizens, particularly the aged people and street children, and to get the law for the handicapped done.

"I see Paralympians as heroes," she continued, "They always achieve more medals than Olympians for Egypt. I see them as normal people who just need some preparations to lead their lives normally. I am impressed by them!"

Maher lamented that Egypt joins only four or five sports in the Paralympics including weightlifting, sitting volleyball and some athletics, calling for more Egyptian awareness of all the Paralympic sports and more qualified coaches to train Paralympians.

Maher's nomination for the parliament came through the Egyptian National Council for Women and she was selected by the president with other 27 members out of a list of 1,200 people.

As for women's role and representation in the Egyptian new parliament, the young lady described the presence of 90 female parliamentarians representing 15 percent of lawmakers for the first time in the parliament as "a real accomplishment."

"Egyptian women did not have chances to be engaged much in politics, so they are still learning. We formed a female bloc inside the parliament and we hold meetings and discussions and try to play an active," she continued, noting there's improvement in women's role in Egypt.

Egypt saw two uprisings that ousted two heads of state over the past five years, which affected the people's political awareness in general and that of women in particular.

"Egyptian women have become more aware of political surroundings, as they started to vote, to follow up news, to read more and some started to join the political field. Generally, there's become more political awareness in the country after the recent developments," Egypt's youngest lawmaker concluded. Endit