EURO-MEDITERRANEAN PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY

Transcription

1 EURO-MEDITERRANEAN PARLIAMTARY ASSEMBLY "AD HOC" COMMITTEE ON WOM'S RIGHTS IN THE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES Meeting: Tuesday 28th of March 2006 MINUTES Following the invitation of President of ad hoc Committee on Women s Rights in the Euro- Mediterranean Countries, the meeting of ad hoc Committee took place within the European Parliament in Brussels. The meeting was opened at 9.15 by the Chairperson Grażyna CIEMNIAK. 1. Adoption of the agenda Agenda, proposed by the Chairperson of the ad hoc Committee, focused on: 1. Working programme of the ad hoc Committee for the year 2006, 2. The legislative provisions on women s employment in Euro-Mediterranean Countries, 3. Participation of women in political, economic and social sectors, 4. Discussion on the possible integration of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Women Parliamentarians into the EMPA. Agenda was adopted without any objection. Items 1, 2, and 3 of the agenda were proceeded together. 2. Working plan of the ad hoc Committee, legislative provisions on women s employment in Euro-Mediterranean Countries and participation of women in political, economic and social sector Statement by the Chairperson Mrs CIEMNIAK, said that in line with to the Barcelona Declaration the ad hoc Committee was supposed to take all the steps necessary to ensure the greater participation of women in political, economic and social sectors. She stressed that Euro-Mediterranean Partners should ensure gender equality, women s rights protection and prevent all kinds of discrimination. Moreover, women s employment should be strengthened, education should be improved and should include a greater access for girls and women to ensure equal status both for women 1/7

2 and men. The Chairperson also said that during the EMPA plenary session the final declaration on support and promotion of women s rights and on women s encouragement in the political and economic life, on equal rights and access to the labour market and on better access to the social and economic life was adopted. Then the CHAIRPERSON gave the floor to the participants. Mrs KRATSA, Vice-Chairperson, said that ad hoc Committee should not only focus on the legislation and women s participation in 3 sectors but should examine the proposed items in broader contexts. Firstly, she proposed to examine the reason for discrimination of women in political, economic and social life and then to study each of the subjects in detail. Secondly, she stressed the importance of the European Community law s strategy and the necessity for reviewing the European Parliament s report. She added that it was not possible that day to discuss all countries in detail. Therefore, in order to be effective, it will be necessary to set up some groups to prepare the relevant reports in detail. Baroness NICHOLSON, MEP, asked the European Parliament s Secretariat to forward the facts about actual status of all women, especially minority and immigrant women, which could have a considerable bearing on the women s independence right to travel, to possess a passport etc. The CHAIRPERSON informed that information, based on material received from the national parliaments by her Secretariat, were contented in the prepared dossier. She agreed with Mrs KRATSA that it was impossible to discuss individually the women s rights in each country that day. Mrs GARCÍA-PÉREZ, MEP, suggested that the ad hoc Committee should exchange views to study the legislative situation in member states and how the ad hoc Committee could promote women s rights in the Mediterranean area. She proposed to constitute 3-4 working groups which could prepare 3-4 reports and to point out one rapporteur for each of the groups to present the findings. Then the ad hoc Committee should meet again to look through and start to discuss the preliminary report. Mrs TERZI, Vice-Chairperson, said that aim and priority of the ad hoc Committee were to improve the women s situation in the Mediterranean countries. She expressed her opinion on the necessity of preparing information about achievements, which had been accomplished in these countries and to make recommendations. She said that during the next ad hoc Committee session, the final resolution, based on recommendations, should be adopted and in that way the ad hoc Committee could help women to promote status of women in their countries. She underlined that the aim of the report would be to bring pressure to bear on the governments to make further efforts in order to achieve equality between men and women and necessary improvement of status of women in the family law. Mrs AL-SAOUD from Jordan expressed her critical opinion that the discussion on procedure and mechanism of the ad hoc Committee s proceedings lasted too long and said that it was high time to present any proposals, to focus on the promotion of women s rights, exchange of information and to examine how to improve the women s situation in the Mediterranean countries. 2/7

3 Mrs SHERIFAY from Sweden took the chance to express her regret that she hadn t had any time to read the dossier prepared for this session earlier. She supported readily the proposal for constituting the working groups. Mrs PETRESCU from Romania thanked for preparing the dossier. She emphasised the great significance of the independence of women in economic sector which should evince the equal access to education in each Member States of EUROMED. She said that women s situation depended on both legal and mental aspects and the ad hoc Committee had to clearly state that women were humans. Mrs BOUNOUR from Algeria pointed out that information included in the dossier should be updated especially as regards the Algerian family law of 1984 which had been recently amended and many rights introduced in Algeria which were not included. She added that this dossier was a platform for future work. Moreover, she proposed to publish a bulletin by the Committee informing women about tasks and work of the Committee as well as about the legislative acts on women s rights in each EUROMED Member States. She said that in the South, to compare to the North, there was some legislation which was more progressive than the EU laws, but the problem in the South lay with the implementation and it was stated that environment and mentality are major obstacle to implement the legislative acts. The CHAIRPERSON agreed on the proposal to set-up the working groups that would prepare the draft of the particular parts of the report for the meetings in June and in October. She stressed that it was the preliminary dossier, prepared on the basis of information which had been sent to her Secretariat by the national parliaments and asked for providing updated and additional information if necessary. Mrs ABIDLI from Tunisia stated that the ad hoc Committee on Women s Rights had been established in the appropriate time when terrorism and violence were prevailing in Mediterranean region. She said that this region suffered from major disparities in social and economic life. She also said that women were more sensitive to general issues for eg. fairness or security issues than men and in order to achieve the equality, both sides women and men from the North and the South had to be engaged in the dialog. She stressed that it was indispensable to understand Western and Muslim civilization. She proposed to introduce one additional item to the agenda of the ad hoc Committee, which would underline the significance of value of tolerance, fairness and what kind of provisions were requested for women in this area. She also underlined that men and women had had the ability to enjoy totally equal for 50 years in Tunisia. She added that the ad hoc Committee should reinvigorate these provisions and improve the dialog. Mr MORO, Principle Administrator on Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in the European Commission, informed that the European Commission together with Austrian and Finish Presidencies were preparing the ministerial conference in Istanbul in November 2006 on gender equality issues. It corresponded to the initiative which the Commission started with its Communication to the EP of what should be done over the next 5 years within the Barcelona Process. He added that it was necessary to cover 3 major sectors, relevant to the gender equality: rights of women as a guarantee of human rights and as an instrument in achieving democracy, access to education and labour market and role of the culture in the mass media, role of media in influencing on mentality. He stressed that gender equality and women s rights should be looked at the both sides of the Mediterranean Sea - North and South. He stated that the gender violence existed in the South and in the North. He also added that the ad 3/7

4 hoc Committee should closely cooperate with EMPA s committees on political issues and on economic issues, FEMISE and Anna Lindh Foundation. Moreover, Mr Moreno informed that a couple of sub-regional conferences would take place: in May in Morocco for Maghreb countries and in June in Jordan for Mashreq countries. He added that the delegation of the ad hoc Committee would also be invited to these conferences. The European Commission would like to set up a common dialog between men and women form various countries to discuss the 3 topics mentioned at the beginning. He said that people from the EU and the Mediterranean countries wanted to work on gender equality in the greater depth to make this process more visible and achieve the progress. Asked by Mrs KRATSA for providing the detailed dates of these regional conferences, Mr MORO could not give the precise dates due to lack of confirmation. He also said that the European Commission was preparing the programme concerning women s rights within the New Financial Perspective for Baroness NICHOLSON said that she had been asked by the Foreign Affairs Committee of European Parliament to take the responsibility for analysing foreign policy for the Parliament as regards the gender main streaming. She expressed her expectation for supporting her work by the members of the ad hoc Committee in analysing the gender issues including the situation of families in the Arabic Peninsula and in the EU countries. She said that she would organise 2 seminars on these subjects in the forthcoming 6 months and members of the ad hoc Committee were invited to help in preparing the agenda and the meetings. She also noticed that over many years the EUROMED budget has been marked by a lack of absorption capacity. Mrs MITRAYEL from Egypt suggested that each member of the ad hoc Committee would prepare the report on the women s situation in his or her own country in order to exchange good practises and to find out the best way to secure women s participation in all aspects of life. She also noticed that it would be very important to organise meetings regularly and promote women's rights/ participation. Mrs CHEIKH BAKOUR from Syria said that there was a necessity for exchanging views and getting to know the respective experiences in that field. All issues related to legislation and law were settled in the respective parliaments, thus this should urge members to look into the gaps and the shortcomings in the law of their countries. The majority of laws in Arab countries ensure the full equality between men and women. She said that in Syria there were a lot of women at the top positions for eg. newly appointed vice-president of Syria, ambassadors, more than 20 judges and a group of high officials. She noticed that the most important obstacle to respect the equal opportunities was the law implementation and she underlined the importance of work hand in hand with the civil society and NGOs. She proposed to dedicate one session of Assembly to the situation of women and future perspective in the area. She drew Mr Moreno s attention that his idea of the violence in the Southern Mediterranean was unreasonable and in Syria there had not been this sort of violence as EU countries though. Mrs GARCÍA-PÉREZ acknowledged the significance of equality between men and women. In this regard she said that in Spain, the parliament had already passed the very advanced legislation on equal opportunities for men and women which would help to promote them. She underlined that the common aim of the ad hoc Committee was to fight against inequality. Overcoming of inequality should integrate the ad hoc Committee s members who should fight against physical violence, gender violence, and unequal access to political and social life. 4/7

5 Baroness NICHOLSON pointed out that a lot of women had not any access to the healthy food, to the protection of health and it affected women globally. She also stressed that due to embarrassed problem, people should not avoid of saying about problems in various countries should not be ashamed. Mrs SHERIFAY noticed that even in Sweden the women s situation was not perfect and in this context she enumerated women s trafficking and sexual abuse. She expressed her conviction that all countries suffered from it. Mrs ABIDLI and Mrs TERZI said that some countries in the Mediterranean region could emulate Tunisia s success within this area and added that it was necessary to encourage the public opinion in order to promote women s role. Mrs Terzi stated that the domestic violence against women concerned not only the South as Mr Moreno mentioned, but the North as well. Mr MORO refuted that saying about the domestic violence against women, he had avoided the North. In his opinion, this issue touches all countries in the North, South, East and West as well. Mr STIUCĀ from Romania said that mentality, stereotypes and prejudice were very important problems to be overcome. He underlined that consideration for the basic value was the main issue. He expressed his astonishment at talking about women s rights without talking about human rights. Mrs AL-SAOUD agreed that the ad hoc Committee should start saying about domestic violence against women, but at the same time she was convenience that women s participation in political, economic and social life was more important. She also reminded what Mrs Cheikh Bakour had said that domestic violence was not prevailing in Arab countries. The CHAIRPERSON closed the discussion on items 1, 2 and 3 of the agenda concluding that 4 teams should be set up to prepare reports on the discussed subjects. Following the Chairperson's proposals, the Committee agreed on the setting-up of 4 teams for preparing the particular part of the report as follows: Team 1 - Comparative analysis of the legislation in the EU and Mediterranean countries on women s rights composition: Mrs SHERIFAY - rapporteur, Mrs KRATSA, Mrs ABIDLI Team 2 - Women s participation in political, economic and social life composition: Mrs AL-SAOUD - rapporteur, Mrs BOUNOUR, Mrs GARCIA-PEREZ, Mrs PEHLIVAN Team 3 - Access of women to education and health composition: Mrs ABIDLI - rapporteur, Mrs MITRAYEL, Mrs CHEIKH BAKOUR (and Mrs PETRESCU as a supporting member of the team) Team 4 - EU projects and financial means for programmes supporting women and gender equality composition: Mrs KRATSA rapporteur 5/7

6 CHAIRPERSON gave the delivery dates as follows: - 15 th April - deadline for sending basic documents from the EMPA member states, - 30 th April - deadline for preparing and submitting the preliminary reports, - 30 th May - deadline for preparing and submitting the draft of reports. Then Mrs CIEMNIAK proceeded to the last item of the agenda. 3. Discussion on the possible integration of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Women parliamentarians into the EMPA Statement by the Chairperson CHAIRPERSON presented the note on the possible integration of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Women parliamentarians into the EMPA that was attached to the dossier. She welcomed Chairperson of the Forum, Mrs Gautier, and informed that Mrs Gautier had asked the President of the EMPA for taking a decision, how the cooperation between the Forum and the ad hoc Committee would exist. According to the EMPA Bureau decision, the ad hoc Committee had to discuss the issue and to suggest the solution. The Chairperson explained briefly the history of the Forum and the idea of establishment of the ad hoc Committee. The Chairperson added that she had met with Mrs Gautier in order to learn more about the activities of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum. She underlined that after having studied the situation she found it beneficial to use the hitherto existing experiences of Forum by the ad hoc Committee since women parliamentarians from the Forum were not the members of EMPA and they had no rights to participate in work of the ad hoc Committee and the EMPA. She suggested that Mrs Gautier could be invited as a guest to participate in meetings of the ad hoc Committee. Mrs Ciemniak added that it would be useful to facilitate the contact with various organisations in order to learn from each other, to contribute to better results of work of the ad hoc Committee and to achieve the goal. She underlined the necessity for strengthening the participation of women in all spheres of activity and in every day life. CHAIRPERSON asked Mrs Gautier to take the floor. Mrs GAUTIER thanked for inviting her to the session and for introducing. She said that the Forum had been established in 1995 and so far now it met only 4 times: in 2000 in Naples (Italy), in 2001 in La Valetta (Malta), in 2002 in Madrid (Spain) and in 2003 in Amman (Jordan). The last meeting of the Forum concerned women in the armed conflicts and on violence in marriage, which were the universal problems and did not touch only the North or South. She noticed that the goals of the ad hoc Committee covered the same goals of the Forum. She said that the majority members of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Women Parliamentarians were in favour of integration the Forum into the EMPA. She also added that she had a letter form Mr CASINI, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, suggesting the idea of integration of the Forum with the new institutional framework created by the Euro- Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. Then Mrs CIEMNIAK gave the floor to the participants. Mrs KRATSA clarified that the ad hoc Committee was not a women s committee of Euro- Mediterranean Assembly, but it was the committee, which had been set up for the certain period of time and for the specific reasons, so the Forum and the ad hoc Committee could not 6/7

7 be perceived as a parallel bodies and she didn t know how these 2 bodies could go together. She added that meetings of the Forum were very important but the only thing which should be discussed that day was the method of cooperation. She supported the cooperation between the Forum and the ad hoc Committee to achieve the common goals and to organise the public hearing together with the Forum. Mrs ABIDLI agreed with Mrs Kratsa that the Forum should be kept in existence and the ad hoc Committee should proceed as Mrs Kratsa had already said. Mrs PETRESCU expressed her will to cooperate with the Forum. Mrs CHEIKH BAKOUR expressed her willingness to obtain the Forum s goals and to find out the range of tasks and work of the Forum. She didn t understand why Syria hadn t been informed about the Forum and she expressed the strong desire to take part in the Forum s work. Also Mrs AL-SAOUD acknowledged the lack of knowledge about the Forum. Chairperson, Mrs CIEMNIAK, concluded that the integration of both bodies wasn t possible. She repeated the invitation for members of the Forum to the ad hoc Committee s meetings. She also added that the Committee could derive experience from the Forum s activities. At the end of the meeting, Mrs CIEMNIAK informed that she had submitted to the EMPA Bureau the request for an extension of the Committee s mandate at least until March She also reminded about the dates of the next meetings of the ad hoc Committee on 26 th of June 2006 in Warsaw and on 2 nd of October The meeting closed at /7