The Commission entirely shares the importance attached by the European Women’s Lobby to addressing the particular circumstances affecting women seeking international protection in the context of preparing a Common European Asylum System. These issues have to be reflected according to specific needs in the different instruments.

For instance, the Commission has started preparations for a Directive on reception conditions for asylum seekers. It is our intention to make provisions for persons with special needs. The particular needs and situations of women clearly come into this category. The issue of gender persecution will also be studied in depth before the Commission tables proposals on Community standards for persons to qualify as refugees and to be granted subsidiary forms of protection.

The Commission’s proposal for a Directive on temporary protection in case of mass influx of displaced persons dated 24 May 2000 contains provisions on appropriate assistance to persons having special needs such as persons who have undergone torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence.

Another example of the Commission’s awareness of this dimension can be found in its draft Directive on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status, dated 20 September 2000. Since it is a first measure on asylum procedures, the Commission does not require Member States which operate a case-based administrative system for examining applications for asylum to replace their system. However the Commission has introduced a minimum standard in the proposal with which it proposes all Member States should comply: every family member of an applicant has a right to be interviewed separately. This will ensure that the statement of a woman is put on record, even if the host Member State does not consider her as an applicant for asylum in her own right.

Other standards in the proposal meant to protect inter alia the rights of women include the right to a change of interviewer and interpreter, if a woman interviewed has inhibitions to present the grounds for the application to a male interviewer and interpreter, for instance because she has been a victim of sexual abuse.

I therefore welcome the attention which this press conference is drawing to such an important issue. It is one of which the Commission has firmly in mind in preparing its own asylum proposals.