[Brussels, 03 February 2012] Ahead of the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Amnesty International and the European Women’s Lobby challenged the European Union to lay out its vision and commitment for ending female genital mutilation and other forms of violence against women. Since 2010, when the European Commission committed to adopt a strategy on violence against women, including FGM, there has been no coherent, structured attempt to address this human rights violation.

The European Parliament estimates that 500,000 women and girls living in Europe are suffering from the lifelong consequences of FGM and another 180,000 are at risk each year. Most often, girls are taken abroad during their summer vacation and are forced to undergo FGM to ensure their marriageability or social status. While some member states have laws and other policy measures in place, there is a wide disparity amongst the states.

France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and other (...)

[Brussels, 02 February 2012] EU funding for combating violence against women must not be decreased in the EU long term budget 2014-2020, requires European Parliament in a resolution adopted on Thursday.

The European Women’s Lobby welcomes the resolution, drafted by Regina Bastos (EPP), as an important contribution to the on-going debate about the future EU budget. The EWL is concerned that in the Commission’s proposals for future EU funding programmes there is no earmarked funding for gender equality and violence against women. This may mean that the actual funding for these issues will decrease.

Parliament reiterates that the current DAPHNE programme, the only EU-wide programme to combat violence against women, children and young people, has been underfunded so far. From 2014 DAPHNE will be incorporated into a ’Rights and Citizenship Programme.’

MEPs regret that combating violence against women is not explicitly listed among the "specific objectives" set out in the Commission’s (...)

[Brussels, 26 January 2012] The disappointing results of the European Parliament mid-term elections reveal that this institution still has a long way to go for gender parity. In the aftermath of the reallocation of the internal leading posts of the EP that takes place in the middle of every parliamentary term, the EWL calls on political leaders to do more to ensure gender parity.

The backlash against gender parity within the European Parliament means that it is necessary to reopen the debate on binding measures for gender balance within European institutions.

Backlash for parity in EP mid-term elections

In 2009, European voters sent a clear message in support of parity democracy: the number of women MEPs increased by five percentage points, to 35%. Two and half years later, the unwillingness of the political groups of the Parliament to do their share, by ensuring the election of women in internal leadership posts, means that this message has not been heard.

Last week, the MEPs (...)

[Brussels, 18 January 2012] In the context of the European Commission public consultation on the right to family reunification, the European Network of Migrant Women and the European Women’s Lobby have launched a lobbying campaign that calls for gender-sensitive EU policies on family reunification.

We are calling on the European Commission to enforce the current EU Directive on the right to family reunification, rather than reopen legislative negotiations, which, given the current political climate, could be detrimental to migrants. In particular, we call on the EU and the member states to ensure the Directive is implemented in a gender-sensitive manner.

Lobbying Kit - EU Directive on the Right to Family Reunification: What is at stake for migrant women?

The ENoMW and the EWL have produced a Lobbying Kit that helps organisations and individuals to get involved. The Lobbying Kit provides useful background information, and it offers several tools to effective lobbying for EU family (...)

[Brussels, 13 January 2012] The European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW) and the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) have produced three video clips in order to make visible the discrimination against migrant women in family reunification provisions.

The clips tell the stories of three migrant women, Liz, Saheli and Claudia. Their stories highlight the main challenges that migrant women face due to the lack of gender sensitivity of migration policies, in particular family reunification policies.

The clips are the center-piece of the ENoMW and the EWL campaign for more gender sensitive family reunification provisions in the context of the forthcoming review of the EU family reunification legislation.

Clip I: Liz

Liz cannot reach the salary level needed to qualify for family reunification. She misses her children terrible but can’t afford to stop sending home the remittances. Children don’t understand the waiting period and feel rejected by their parents. It is mostly children who are (...)

[Brussels, 02 January 2012] The European Commission will soon adopt the much anticipated White Paper on pensions, which will set out a vision for affordable and sustainable pensions in the EU. The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) has written a letter to the Commission President José Manuel Barroso, making concrete proposals on how the European Commission can ensure gender equality in pensions.

The outcomes of current pension systems are gendered and unequal. The gender pension gap, the difference between women’s and men’s individual pension entitlements that is the mirror of all the inequalities women have faced across their lives, is more than 40% in several EU Member States. More than one fifth of the elderly women in the EU live at risk of poverty.

The EWL is concerned that the current tendencies to increase retirement ages, strengthen the link between contributions and benefits and emphasise the role of private pension schemes may aggrevate these inequalities.

In the letter, the (...)

[Brussels, 16 December 2011] On 01 January 2012, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) will pass from Poland to Denmark. The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) is the largest association of women’s organisations in Europe with more than 2000 member organisations. The EWL calls on the Danish Presidency to be a driving force for women’s rights in Europe despite the current financial, economic and social crisis. Both at the European and the national level, we witness how the crisis is used to cut funding for women’s rights and gender equality-related activities and institutions and how these issues are losing visibility and focus. These cuts also threaten the very existence of women´s organisations. Women’s NGOs are needed for the development of quality democracy, growth and welfare. This trend not only risks jeopardising recent progress; it also risks creating serious backlashes regarding for example the support and prevention of violence against women, the promotion of (...)

[Brussels, 09 December 2011] On 01 December, Employment and Social Affairs ministers adopted yet another set of recommendations on reconciliation of work and family life. Will these recommendations finally lead to concrete action and progress toward greater gender equality?

The Council Conclusions on ’Reconciliation of work and family life as a precondition for equal participation in the labour market’ call on the EU Member States to:

step up measures to achieve the Barcelona childcare targets encourage men to share family and domestic responsibilities equally with women speed up progress in providing quality formal care for dependents encourage employers to adopt family friendly measures take gender equality aspects into account in the planning of parental leave provisions combat gender stereotypes related to work and family life.

The Council invites both the Member States and the Commission to ensure that EU funding, in particular the Structural Funds, will be used for these (...)

[Brussels, 25 November 2011] The EWL has called on the European Parliament to ensure that EU funding for promoting equality between women and men and combating violence agaist women will not be cut in the future.

Last week, the European Commission adopted its proposal for the new funding programme called ’Rights and Citizenship’ that will finance the EU’s activities on gender equality, non-discrimination, fundamental rights and combating violence from 2014 to 2020. The EWL is concerned that the proposal as it stands may weaken the EU’s ability to promote equality between women and men and combat violence against women with specific, predictable funding.

On Monday, Cécile Gréboval, the EWL Secretary General, spoke to the Women’s Rigths Committee of the European Parliament about the EWL’s concerns for the future funding for these policies. The Women’s Rights Committee is preparing an own initiative report on the successes and the future of the DAPHNE III programme to fight violence agaist (...)

[Brussels, 23 November 2011] Almost every other woman in the EU will experience male violence during her lifetime: One in five will fall victim to domestic violence; one in ten will be raped or forced into sexual acts. Violence against women – although rarely discussed or addressed – is the most widespread human rights abuse within the EU, and in times of recession such as these, things only get worse. On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, the European Women’s Lobby (EWL) is, once again, calling for urgent action on behalf of the EU to ensure the fundamental rights of its peoples.

Speaking at a European Parliament Hearing on 23 November, Cécile Gréboval, Secretary General of the EWL, pointed out that ‘Ending violence against women is not a luxury for times of growth; it is even more crucial in times of crisis as women are hit very hard.’

According to a 2010 study conducted by the EWL and Oxfam International, economic (...)