Women's Views on News |
- What has the EU done for women?
- Mothers ‘cannot have it all’ in 2013
- Help limit gender-based violence
| What has the EU done for women? Posted: 15 Mar 2013 09:17 AM PDT
But the future may not be so bright, reports Rachel Salmon, who was in the audience. The European Parliament Information Office in the UK and the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations hosted a debate on 7 March called ‘What has the EU done for Gender Equality’ to coincide with International Women’s Day. It was also one of the events organised to mark the 40th anniversary of Britain joining the EU. One of the speakers, Dr Roberta Guerrina, Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Politics at the University of Surrey believed the EU had been very instrumental in establishing employment rights for women. "The introduction of the Equal Pay Act in 1970 was influenced by the prospect of accession, in that the UK would have had to implement it. "The 1992 Pregnant Worker Directive and the 1996 Parental Leave Directive, which also included fathers, allows six months, albeit unpaid, and three months for the woman, which was non-transferrable. “The UK has gone beyond these basic measures, but positive employment rights have consolidated women's positions as workers." Justine Roberts, founder and CEO of Mumsnet, said she believed the EU needed to do more to publicise the good work it has done for women. "Most are aware of maternity and part-time workers rights, but we can't get away from the fact that even graduates have less pay. There is still a lot to be done. "It is important, given that we may have a referendum coming up. “Women are delighted that they have time off to go to ante-natal clinic, but they don't join the dots," she said. Marina Yannakoudakis, Conservative MEP for London, who was instrumental in blocking EU plans to give women 20 weeks maternity leave, said the EU did most for women's rights when it worked together to prevent Female Genital Mutilation, sex trafficking and enforced marriage. "I wouldn't like the EU to push more legislation, particularly on small and medium sized businesses," she said. Labour MEP Mary Honeyball said she believed that some of the EU's recent work to promote equal access to goods and services was breaking new ground for women. She said that new EU regulations were forcing the insurance industry to take a close look at the way it worked so that women received the same pensions as men. "If you get EU legislation it filters down and makes people look at what they are doing," she pointed out. Jacqueline Minor, head of the European Commission Representation in London, said that half of the staff employed by EU institutions were now women, but women make up only 28 per cent of the top three grades. When she joined it was just 10 per cent. "We tend to find women in HR or coordinating jobs rather than hard policy jobs," she said. The EU was addressing this by encouraging more women to apply and taking measures to stop 'cloning', the tendency for managers to replace an employee with someone with similar skills and characteristics, which would work against women in a male-dominated workplace. But there was concern that, in future, the EU may not be such a force for good for women. "The accession of Central and Eastern European states has led to retrenchment. There are a large number of socially conservative states sending Justices to the European Court of Justice. "It has become much less an advocate for women's rights, it is sitting on the fence, it is more conservative, especially when it comes to issues relating to care," said Guerrina. "In the southern states of the EU, women are actively discriminated against for having children. Italy now has the lowest birth rate in the world. Women have gone on strike because of the impact of non-equality," she added. "A lot of the impetus for change in the past came from the UK. “The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Trades Unions were very clever at picking cases that would advance rights. “This has slowed down of late," she said. There was also concern about David Cameron's intention to renegotiate Britain's EU membership if he wins the next UK election and plans to transfer powers, currently governed by the EU, back to the British parliament. The TUC’s General Secretary Frances O'Grady, was unable to attend. But in a written statement to the meeting, she said she did not believe repatriating powers from the EU would lead to improved social protection. "As inequality grows and living standards fall I hope we will win the case for keeping Europe social for men and especially for women," she wrote. Honeyball believed Cameron's talk of repatriation was wishful thinking. "The UK won't be in a position to put together a qualified majority which this will need. I am not convinced by the negotiating skills of George Osborne or David Cameron," she said. Yannakoudakis said that Angela Merkel had welcomed Cameron's latest speech about reshaping the EU. "If we repatriate these powers, it doesn't mean that all maternity rights will go away tomorrow," she said. But Roberts sounded a note of caution. "Fifty one per cent of the voting population are female. “It is unlikely that David Cameron would start messing with the gender equality rules. The women's vote is important. And she continued, “The Leader of the Conservative Party is not ranking as well as he once was.” "We know UKIP is doing well with some ex Tory voters," she said. And she said that when Mumsnet hosted a discussion with UKIP leader Nigel Farage he repeated Alan Sugar's mantra that 'no employer in his right mind would employ a women of child-bearing age'. We have been warned.  |
| Mothers ‘cannot have it all’ in 2013 Posted: 15 Mar 2013 07:31 AM PDT
Each year the European Parliament celebrates International Women’s Day with an event that brings together European and national MPs from parliamentary committees for equal opportunities. In 2013 the event focused on the theme “Women’s response to the crisis”. Women's Views on News was there. While informative and enlightening, the information presented was not positive news for women in the UK. And it showed a true reflection of what women, especially those who choose to have children and also work, are confronted with today. Elisabeth Morin-Chartier, vice chair of FEMM, the EU’s committee for women’s rights and equality, and rapporteur at the Brussels event, said: “Women are facing a silent pernicious crisis which worsens and weakens their condition. "Before the crisis there were already more women affected than men by unemployment, precarious work, part-time, low wages and slow careers." These jobs were the first to go in the crisis and continue to be the main jobs held by women who have child care responsibilities. She continued: "Today, as a result of austerity policies, they suffer a double punishment. This is an issue at the heart of political equality and employment. "I say stop to the decline of women in society.” As a result of cuts in social security benefits and to the budget for social welfare infrastructure, such as education, childcare, health and care services, women have left employment or been forced to reduce their working hours, thus increasing the feminisation of poverty. And part-time employment has a long term impact, not only diminishing their current, working income and rights, but affecting the level of their pensions as well. Vice chair on Gender Equality, Edite Estrela, MEP, said that the European Council is refusing to move on maternity leave proposals. As it stands, the directive is 20 years old and considered out of date and incapable of meeting current needs. Women should be in a position to be able to look after their children in the early years instead of feeling obliged to return to work early because of financial pressures or because of threats to job security. She said: "The crisis should not be used to downgrade women. We shouldn't accept that there is money for banks but not for women." It seems that the current view is that maternity periods are considered a burden on the economy. Fertility figures are currently low and Europe is threatened by a social security crisis. The committee wants to ensure policies are in place which encourage women to have children rather than discourage, or make it difficult for them. But the average pay inequality across Europe at hiring point is 17 per cent. This is in part due to periods of maternity leave and women taking careers breaks to care for their children. And the pay gap rises for every child she has. For each child birth and period of maternity leave, her wage drops by 12 per cent. Women then return to work taking on roles with fewer responsibilities so they can care for their children and they may find that they do not have enough support to do more than work part time. A woman's career curve is therefore not as steep as a man's as she assumes child care responsibilities while he continues to progress up the career ladder. It is unacceptable that women receive less money than men for doing the same job and do not have the same opportunities as men available to them. The European Parliament asked TNS Opinion to carry out a Flash telephone survey to look at the impact of the crisis. The fieldwork was carried out between 4 and 7 February 2013 in the 27 EU member states, and 25,556 European citizens were interviewed, 1,010 of whom were in the UK. Almost one in three Europeans said that the crisis has in particular worsened the pay gap (30 per cent) and made it more difficult for women to reconcile their private and working lives (30 per cent). As part of the survey, Europeans were asked about the most important aspects which an employer takes into account when recruiting a man or a woman. The criteria highlighted differ radically depending on whether the recruitment concerns a man or a woman. And in the UK, 52 per cent of women considered employers attach the most significance to whether a woman has children or not when deciding whether to recruit her. The FEMM committee members believe that, despite unemployment rates for men and women being comparable, the crisis affects women differently: working conditions for women have become considerably more insecure, their income has diminished and part-time and fixed-term contract employment has increased, to the detriment of more stable employment. The committee approved a set of proposals aiming to address the impact of the crisis on gender equality: investing in lifelong training and new jobs, investing in public transport, and developing child care facilities are among the proposals to be voted on in the European Parliament on 12 March 2013. The report, 'The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Gender Equality and Women's Rights' , produced following the results of the Flash survey confirmed that Europe needs to be proactive, not just reactive in dealing with the inequalities women face in the labour force. At the time of writing the outcome of the vote had not yet been published.  |
| Help limit gender-based violence Posted: 15 Mar 2013 02:19 AM PDT
In the spring of 2012, in preparation for the first round of UN negotiations of the Arms Trade Treaty, four international human rights organisations published a joint policy paper on ‘Gender and the Arms Trade Treaty’. This paper was a united call for gender-based violence (GBV) to be included as one of the criteria in the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) being discussed by the United Nations. The organisations were – are – the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) Women's Network, Amnesty International (AI) and Religions for Peace. The General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) decided to convene a Final Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty in March 2013, to conclude the work begun in July 2012. The organisations said they wanted to raise awareness about the connection between gender-based violence and the unregulated international arms flow. And they wanted to draw attention to the need for a reference to gender-based violence to be included in the now upcoming negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty which will be held from 18-28 March. They would like one of the criteria in the Arms Trade Treaty to require states not to allow an international transfer of conventional arms where there is a substantial risk that those arms will be used to perpetrate or facilitate acts of gender-based violence, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. Or, in short: don’t sell guns to places where women and girls will be threatened with violence or actually hurt, raped or murdered. For it is clear, they continued, that the arms trade has specific gender dimensions and direct links to gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence. During armed conflict, for example, sexual violence is in many cases widely as well as systematically employed against civilians. And the unregulated arms trade often facilitates violence against women: violence and conflict by both state and non-state actors is fuelled by the mere presence of weapons in societies. To cite one example of this: on 28 September 2009, AI reported, Guinean security forces inflicted acts of excessive force and unlawful violence, including sexual violence, and other gross violations of human rights on a group of unarmed – unarmed – civil society organisations and political parties peacefully protesting at the Conakry Stadium. One woman told Amnesty International, "I tried to climb onto a wall but a 'red beret' saw me and hit me with his truncheon while another one shot me in the legs. “Three of them took me towards the toilets, dragging me along the ground. One of them raped me while another 'red beret' pointed his gun at my head…." Evidence suggested that Guinea’s security forces continued to receive international supplies of small arms ammunition despite their repeated use of small arms for unlawful killings, sexual violence and the violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations. In some countries women are disproportionately affected by high levels of firearms-related homicides and by domestic violence. Research carried out in Guatemala, for example, by the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office, shows that for all murder cases, 69 per cent of women were killed with firearms. And if the issue of gender-based violence were to be included in the ATT, the transfer of arms to perpetrators of such violence could be limited. Such an inclusion could also be a way of acknowledging that both arms-exporting and arms-importing countries do have a joint, however different, responsibility to prevent crimes of gender-based violence. The value of the UK's conventional arms exports consistently ranks third, fourth or fifth globally. According to AI, the UK generally supports strict criteria for arms transfers, but has supplied arms to countries with a high risk of serious human rights violations, including Sri Lanka. And the UK’s national legislation is being reviewed, following evidence that it supplied small arms, ammunition, munitions and armoured vehicle equipment to Libya under Gaddafi, small arms to Bahrain and law enforcement equipment to Yemen. On 11 February WILPF, AI, IANSA and Religions for Peace launched a petition that aims to encourage everyone to show that for them preventing gender-based violence is a priority, and that governments must do their utmost to ensure GBV is included in the Arms Trade Treaty. Please help limit gender-based violence. Negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be held from 18-28 March. Please sign this petition now.  |
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