International Day to End Violence Against Women 2015 #ourfuture

Published onNovember 25, 2015

[Brussels, 25 November] On this year’s International Day to End Violence Against Women the European Women’s Lobby calls once more on the European Commission and the European Union Member States to deliver a concrete and ambitious EU new Strategy for Equality between women and men. With a social media action under the hashtag #ourfuture, the EWL wants to highlight that the current strategy ends in December 2015 and that no plans for 2016 have been officially announced. We want an EU Strategy for equality between women & men because… …it is 2015! …we want our voice to be heard …we want to live free from male violence …too many women are still economically dependent …we cannot succeed if half of us are held back …‪#‎ourfuture‬ starts now As stated in our article from April, the EWL thinks it is high time to transform words into action. The EU Strategy should be the instrument of the EU commitment to Equality between women and men as a stand-alone goal for the European Union. The Strategy should give the vision of a Europe realising equality between women and men and promoting women’s and girls’ human rights. Such vision should build on the values of the EU and on universal and un-negotiable principles that the Member States share through their endorsement of international women’s human rights instruments. It should be consistent with the EU external action on equality between women and men. The vision should ensure that the EU and its Member States COMMIT to the realisation of women and girls’ human rights, ACCELERATE the implementation of existing legislation and the adoption of new instruments, and INVEST in women’s rights and women’s organisations. Based on its vision, the Strategy should propose clear objectives, and indicators and targets to bring positive change to women and girls in Europe. These objectives and goals should be based on the 12 critical areas identified by the Beijing Platform for Action, in order to encompass all challenges and opportunities for the realisation of girls’ and women’s human rights and equality between women and men in Europe. Such objectives and goals must be defined in accordance with:

The work and analysis of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE);
The calls of the European Parliament (especially through its annual report on equality between women and men in the European Union);
The demands of the women’s organisations working at local, national and European levels.

The EWL will continue to call for concrete EU action to provide a strong architecture for women’s human rights and mechanisms for the systematic implementation of gender mainstreaming. Find EWL’s factsheet on violence against women in Europe here. Share EWL’s visuals with hashtag #ourfuture

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