Summary: March 8, 2005: European Parliament - International Women's Day
Oral questions to the Council and Commission on follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women - Platform for Action (Beijing + 10)
Lissy GRÖNER (PES, DE), Amalia SARTORI (EPP-ED, IT), Hiltrud BREYER (Greens/EFA, DE), Eva-Britt SVENSSON (GUE/NGL, SE), Konrad SZYMAŃSKI (UEN, PL), Urszula KRUPA (IND/DEM, PL), Lydia SCHENARDI (NA, FR) and Maria CARLSHAMRE (ALDE, SE)
Doc.: B6-0015/0016/2005
Debate: 08.03.2005
Vote: Thursday, 10.03.2005
Parliament President Josep BORRELL opened the debate on International Women's Day, saying that millions of women still face discrimination and violence every day. The dreadful scenes of Turkish police action against a women's demonstration in Istanbul were only the latest example. He invited all MEPs - men included - to take part in the seminar planned for the afternoon on tackling violence against women. With one European woman in five saying she has been the victim of abuse there is
still much to do. There were alarming signs that poverty was becoming feminised, as women were still paid around 16 per cent less for the same work. Within Parliament, one member of each committee was now asked to take responsibility for issues of equality between men and women. The aim, said the President, was for Parliament to have equal representation of men and women, not through legal imposition, but through the equal abilities of men and women being reflected in social and political
practice throughout Europe.
Lissy GRÖNER (PES, DE), spoke next as the tabler of the questions that were the basis for the debate. "Today is an important day, as it gives us the chance to say that women are not sufficiently involved in the decision making process." The EU, she said, had been intensely involved in the work of the Beijing conference and its follow-up over the last ten years. She congratulated the Luxembourg presidency for its success in blocking the attempts by the United States to move the
goalposts ten years on, notably on the questions of reproductive health and abortion.
Women's participation in the political process in the EU was not bad by international standards, but there was still much to do, she said, calling for quotas to ensure women's involvement. Anti-discrimination policy was in place, but was not always well implemented in the Member States. The DAPHNE and STOP programmes aimed to tackle violence against women and were welcome, but were not enough. "It is not acceptable that one in five women is a victim of violence. We cannot accept the
trafficking of women for sexual exploitation." A European Union gender equality institute was essential to gather together the statistics and information, she said, asking when it would be set up. She also questioned whether the Commission had taken action to make 2006 the 'Year against violence against women.'
Commissioner Vladimír SPIDLAresponded to these points during his speech, saying that the setting up of a gender equality institute would be an important step in gathering the proper evidence base for actions in combating discrimination. He said that the Commission supported Parliament's call for 2006 to be the 'Year against violence against women.'
The Chair of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, Anna ZABORSKA (EPP-ED, SK) spoke of her gratitude to all those women who had defended women's rights and dignity over the years, despite criticism that such action was not feminine or was even exhibitionist. There were still problems for women including exclusion, poverty, rights in the workplace and equality between spouses. The choice of abortion was not an issue just for women, but for society as a whole, she said. She
called for women to take a greater role in creating peace and a state of justice.
Avril DOYLE (EPP-ED, IE) recalled that ten years ago she had represented the Irish government at the Beijing Conference. The fact that women's rights would be boosted by the Constitutional Treaty, she said, would be one good way to "sell" the European Constitution. Mrs Doyle stressed the difference between the de facto and de jure status of women. It was important, she said, to bring men into the debate and remove any male prejudices on discrimination against women
that might have been instilled due to "religious fundamentalist education." Women's rights, she said, were about enabling choice, the choice to have one or more child. It was about the removal of economic obstacles in the way of having one more child. Often in Ireland, she said, women could not afford to have a second child, and more needed to be done to improve child care services.
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