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FROM THE WAR ON TERROR TO AUSTERITY: A lost decade for women and human rights

From the Morung Express, by Heather McRobie

[Brussels 13 June] A recurring theme at the Nobel Women’s Initiative conference in Belfast has been a reflection on the last decade in terms of its global impact on women and human rights. A picture emerged of a period wherein the excuse of ‘war on terror’ as a justificatory narrative for exclusivist identities, state violence and violence against women gave way to official austerity narratives that, in their own way, entrench inequalities and disempower women. Central to the decade was the elevation of the sanctity of the nation state’s security or perceived security, often – paradoxically – at the expense of both its citizens and those outside its borders.

Several speakers reflected on the ‘war on terror’ period in terms of its interrelated assault on human rights and women. The human rights violations and mass violation of human dignity enacted under the guise of the ‘war on terror’ runs from arbitrary detention to drone-strikes, from Guantanamo to Yemen to the encroachment of the rights of ‘citizens’ in the homelands that those who instigated the ‘war on terror’ were claiming to ‘protect’. The attack on women was similarly wide-sweeping: from the neo-colonial appropriation of the discourse of ‘women’s rights’ – toothless and sanitised in its neo-con costume – as an empty vessel to further the cause of militarism in Afghanistan and Iraq, to the ossification of rigid binary gender roles in the ‘homeland’ of America; rapes were committed by occupying soldiers at sites of invasion while in countries such as Yemen and Pakistan women’s lives were eroded by the chaos in their lives caused by the ‘war on terror’.

Amina Mama, Director of the Women and Gender Studies programme at UC Davis, spoke at the conference about how the process of militarisation works in tandem with the construction and reinforcement of rigid, exclusivist gender roles, creating matrixes of power-structures in favour of the nation state and military and against alternative, non-hierarchical ways of being. The epidemic levels of sexual assault within the US military itself – while due to its own complex set of causes – in some sense plays out this dynamic in microcosm, in the interlocking of patriarchy and militarism that is central to the dominant conception of Western statecraft.

Similarly, there is a parallel between ‘us and them’ narratives constructed in the racist discourse of official ‘war on terror’ framings and the ossification of rigid and regressive gender roles that characterised the ‘war on terror’, from the neo-colonial justifications for military invasion under the guise of ‘protecting women’ to the rigidity of gender roles in the ‘homeland’ espoused by the same Republican-Party-mind-set that so enthusiastically rallied for overseas wars. As Susan Faludi and others have outlined, just as the ‘war on terror’ drew on imperial tropes to enact its overseas wars, women at home were further marginalised from power under the logic of the emergency-state of a country at war.

Madeleine Rees of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom mentioned the levels of military spending in the last decade, and the dynamics of arms sales worldwide as a human rights and feminist concern. The cost of the ‘war on terror’ was an estimated $3.2 billion to $4 billion for Americans, a figure that excludes both the economic cost on the invaded countries and the human toll of (by a very conservative estimate) 137,000 civilians killed and 7.8 million refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The toll of a decade’s worth of wars, and the debts incurred as a result, were a significant factor in the economic crisis that dominated the later part of this lost decade.

The ‘lost decade’ was lost in many fronts, and these losses continue. It is worth noting here that, while the ‘war on terror’ may have been a construct of the Bush-Blair era its legacies are potent and alive in our current realities well into the second term of the Obama administration, from drone strikes to the 2012 National Defense Authorisation Act which stitched Bush-era indefinite detention into American domestic law. Meanwhile Guantanamo, one of the icons of Bush-Blair ‘war on terror’, remains open so many Obama-promises later.

Yet if the high years of the ‘war on terror’ played out as a Rubik’s cube of militarism, militaristic gender roles and the corrosion of human rights and dignity, the segue from the ‘war on terror’ era to what could be characterised as the post-2008 ‘austerity’ era did little to loosen this knot, whilst layering upon it its own injustices. Madeleine Rees made the point, during the conference, that austerity should be conceptualised as a ‘war on the poor’. Under the guise of saving the nation state, measures are brought in that entrench inequalities – this has played out in the removal of citizens’ rights to access vital services as social safety-nets are corroded, compounding the difficulties caused by mass employment and underemployment.

In addition to this strain, austerity has been gendered. Governments such as the British government have utilised the emergency-mode of ‘austerity’ to focus its cuts on those who are least invested in by their ideology. The strain of the recession means there has been an increase in domestic violence from Britain to Spain to Greece, just as domestic violence shelters are closing – those who are caught in dangerous and abusive situations are now less likely to have the financial means to leave their partners. Layered on top of this, the re-emergence of right-wing and conservative national governments since 2008 have furthered blocked women’s interests, as cuts have fallen disproportionately on services and benefits vital for women’s safety and development. A report by the European Women’s Lobby found women’s organisations are struggling throughout the region as a direct result of the recession and austerity. This increase of domestic violence, loss of services and benefits for women, and the curtailing of women’s organisations comes in addition to the general impact of the post-2008 recession: deterioration of working conditions and employment, underemployment for women as temping agencies capitalise on their diminished opportunities, and public sector cuts, a sector in which women were the majority of workers. Globally, the impact of austerity has been gendered just as poverty is gendered – this is the intersection of the austerity as a ‘war on the poor’ and austerity as a ‘war on women’. The ‘feminisation of poverty’, which was a pressing concern before 2008, has been deepened by the ‘austerity’ era, firstly through the economic crisis itself and secondly as governments and international organisations have structured their cuts in ways that disproportionately hurt women and other structurally disadvantaged groups.

Yet in these austere times, as women and the poor shoulder the weight of the economic crisis, one sector, at least, seems safe — military spending in the western world continues at its ‘war on terror’ scale while spending on vital services and benefits is decimated, blind to the fact that ‘war on terror’ military spending was a key factor in triggering the 2008 economic crisis. Military spending has barely been encroached upon by austerity measures in the United States and Europe, when compared to the impact of the economic crisis and austerity on citizens’ quality of life. Yet the argument deployed that military and arms are – for all their other faults – at least good job creators in times of high unemployment, has been debunked by a University of Massachusetts study showing that defence spending creates the proportionally smallest number of jobs. Governments continue to militarise, and militarise societies, as citizens at home and abroad suffer the economic hardship brought about by the crisis. The disconnect between military spending and the impact of austerity on citizens is often jarring: Greece, whose crippling economic crisis has taken a painful toll on its citizens, in 2012 spent the most on arms in the EU as a percentage of GDP. This is the combined heritage of the last decade: austerity-crippled citizens, a series of devastating wars, attacks and drone strikes, with increased homelessness and unemployment as governments focus their spending on new weapons. It is a toxic environment for human rights, women’s rights, and social justice.

The thread that follows from the ‘war on terror’ through to ‘austerity’ is the lack of value placed on human life and dignity. Neither militarism nor neo-liberalism place human life and dignity at their centre, yet both work with ease with the modalities of patriarchy. If this ‘lost decade’ can be divided into the ‘war on terror’ (militarism) and the ‘economic crisis’ (neo-liberalism), we can see how both encroached on women and human rights within their frameworks by working in tandem with patriarchal structures: the ‘war on terror’s militarised masculinity and assault on human rights abroad combined with its corrosion of the gains of feminism in the ‘homelands’, and the economic crisis and austerity through its privileging of the market over human values, in a climate where services from health to education to domestic violence provisions are cut but military budgets remain almost untouched.

Speaking at the Nobel Women’s Initiative, academic Valerie Hudson made the point that ‘there is a ‘war on women’ underneath all other wars’, a line of argument that encompasses the much of the misguided and violent nature of the ‘war on terror’ to ‘austerity’ eras. The phrase ‘war on women’ gained widespread media currency during the last Presidential election in the USA, primarily as a way to characterise US Republicans’ attacks on women’s rights, particularly their reproductive rights. In this wider context of this ‘lost decade’ analysis, from the ‘war on terror’ to ‘austerity’, it highlights how the thread of gender inequality, as well as the assault on human rights and social justice, links the two poles of the era.

The ‘lost decade’ was not only ‘lost’ in terms of the lives and potential of those caught in the wars, militarism, state-sponsored xenophobia, encroachment on human rights and loss of the gains of women’s movements. This grim marriage of patriarchy, militarism and neo-liberalism also prevented an adequate response to the urgent and complex global crises of our time, most notably climate change. The urgent need to address climate change has suffered neglect at the hands of the bodies who are doing most of contribute to this global disaster, whilst narratives of ‘war on terror’ and militarism distract from this core global concern. That tackling climate change has fallen by the wayside during the ‘lost decade’ is a global disaster in its own right; it also has gendered dimensions. Women are the primary food producers who are being pushed to work on more barren land as climate change ravages landscapes, while women and children face additional difficulties as refugees as a result of climate change.

If this has been a lost decade for women and human rights, the urgent question now is how we prevent another ‘lost decade’ whilst mitigating against the worst of the impacts of this matrix of militarism, patriarchy and neo-liberalism that mushroomed in the 2000s. Amina Mama spoke at the Nobel Women’s Initiative of practicalities of the moment, of placing women’s security at the heart of human security, moving ‘security’ from a militaristic conception to a feminist conception that centralises human values. More broadly, the task ahead to prevent another ‘lost decade’ is to resist the matrix of militarism, unfettered neo-liberalism and patriarchy as it manifests in the current realities of our ‘austerity’ era.

La Belgique, bientot le nouveau paradis des proxinetes?

http://www.prostitutionetsociete.fr...

La Belgique, bientôt le nouveau paradis des proxénètes ?

mai 2013, par Collectif

Inquiets devant le développement alarmant du proxénétisme dans leur pays, associations et personnalités ont publié cette tribune le 8 mai 2013 dans le quotidien belge Le Soir. Parmi les signataires, le Lobby européen des femmes, le Conseil des Femmes francophones de Belgique, l’Université des Femmes, et des responsables politiques de premier plan : les parlementaires Véronique de Keyser, Zakia Khattabi, Viviane Teitelbaum, et la ministre Céline Fremault.

Propositions de loi autorisant l’exploitation de salons de prostitution, projets d’eros-centers à Liège, puis Seraing, et maintenant Schaerbeek et Saint-Josse… La Belgique voudrait-elle, à l’instar des Pays-Bas, se transformer en paradis des proxénètes ?

On peut sincèrement se poser la question quand on voit un "Dodo la Saumure" se plaindre avec succès, lors de son procès, d’être victime de discrimination quand il est accusé de proxénétisme alors qu’il opère dans un pays qui tolère les maisons closes. Pour de nombreux Français et autres Européens, la Belgique est en effet bien connue pour ses bordels et sa "Villa Tinto" à Anvers, sur le modèle du quartier rouge d’Amsterdam.

Pourtant, la Belgique a ratifié en 1965 la Convention des Nations Unies pour la Répression de la traite des êtres humains et de l’exploitation de la prostitution d’autrui. Ce texte international, adopté dans la foulée des grands instruments de droits humains de l’après-guerre, définit la prostitution comme incompatible avec la dignité et la valeur de la personne humaine. En transposant dans son code pénal les articles de cette Convention, la Belgique, tout comme 16 autres pays de l’Union européenne, s’est engagée à lutter contre toutes les formes de proxénétisme, à soutenir les personnes prostituées dans leurs efforts de réinsertion, et à mettre en place une politique de prévention de la prostitution.

Aujourd’hui, force est de constater que le proxénétisme bénéficie en Belgique d’une impunité croissante, que la prostitution s’est banalisée et qu’aucune politique de prévention n’a été mise en œuvre. Cette impunité s’appuie sur un allègement du code pénal qui, depuis 1995, tolère le proxénétisme immobilier à condition qu’il n’y ait pas de profit dit "anormal". Même si ce texte condamne le fait d’embaucher une personne en vue de la prostitution ou de tenir une maison de prostitution, la politique pénale belge en la matière est démissionnaire. En effet, si l’on appliquait sérieusement ces articles du code pénal, la Villa Tinto à Anvers, les vitrines de la rue d’Aerschot et les carrées de Saint-Josse, mais aussi les nombreux bordels à la frontière belgo-française, seraient obligés de fermer.

A Schaerbeek, les vitrines de la rue d’Aerschot pourraient toutes être considérées comme illégales : inscrites à la Banque-Carrefour des Entreprises comme "débits de boissons", elles fonctionnent donc sur la base d’une fausse déclaration et de faux contrats de "serveuses", ne respectent pas le droit du travail, et affichent clairement des horaires dépassant le maximum légal… "Engage serveuse, 6h-18h ou 18h-6h"… A quand un simple contrôle de l’inspection du travail ?

Par ailleurs, la loi belge prévoit de condamner tout profit anormal tiré de la location d’une chambre ou d’un local aux fins de prostitution. Dans les 60 vitrines de la rue d’Aerschot, chaque personne prostituée verse environ 7500 euros par mois (250 euros par tranche de 12 heures versés tous les jours du mois) aux propriétaires des vitrines (200 euros) et aux "dames de compagnie" (50 euros). Ainsi, les 150 premiers "clients" du mois leur permettent de payer uniquement leur "droit" d’être dans la vitrine. Chaque vitrine accueillant en moyenne quatre personnes par jour, le propriétaire d’une vitrine touche au minimum 800 euros par jour, soit plus de 300 000 euros par an. Dans les 80 à 90 carrées situées sur la commune de Saint-Josse, les "loyers" demandés aux personnes prostituées peuvent atteindre 3500 euros par mois. Dans les deux cas, on a clairement affaire à du proxénétisme hôtelier, avec des profits complètement anormaux, et pourtant aucune action fédérale ne semble entreprise pour contrer ces abus.

Quand on sait que la commune de Schaerbeek prélève une taxe de 2500 euros par femme par an sur les "bars" de la rue d’Aerschot, ainsi que 3500 euros par an pour chaque carrée sur son territoire, et que Saint-Josse perçoit une taxe annuelle de 650 euros en moyenne par carrée, on peut légitimement se demander si nos politiques ne tiennent pas à conserver la prostitution pour des questions financières….

Le proxénétisme serait-il devenu un métier comme un autre en Belgique ? Les règlements de police des communes concernées n’interdisent pas les établissements de prostitution, mais les cantonnent à une série d’adresses précises, et exigent le certificat de conformité délivré par la commune ; peut devenir proxénète… oups, pardon : "exploitant", toute personne majeure ayant un casier judiciaire vierge. Sommes-nous face à des communes proxénètes ou à des communes démunies utilisant les quelques compétences à leur disposition en l’absence d’une politique fédérale ferme en matière de proxénétisme ?

Les Nations Unies estiment que l’industrie du sexe est maintenant le troisième business illégal le plus profitable au monde, après les trafics d’armes ou de drogue. Et pourtant, la Belgique ne semble pas vouloir tirer les leçons des expériences de son voisin les Pays-Bas, qui a autorisé les bordels il y a 13 ans, et ne sait plus comment gérer l’afflux de trafiquants et de personnes prostituées. Plusieurs études émanant du Ministère de la Justice [1], des Services de Police Nationale [2] et de la Ville d’Amsterdam [3] révèlent que le crime organisé a gardé le contrôle sur le secteur légal de l’industrie du sexe : la moitié des "licences d’exploitation" de lieux de prostitution ou de coffee shops (marijuana) sont détenues par un ou plusieurs entrepreneurs déjà condamnés par la justice. Et c’est sans compter l’augmentation des établissements illégaux. A celles et ceux qui prétendent que réglementation de la prostitution permet de protéger les personnes prostituées, les faits néerlandais prouvent le contraire : 50 à 90% des personnes prostituées dans l’ "industrie légale" sont forcées à le faire, et leur situation s’est détériorée.

Même constat en Allemagne, qui a dépénalisé le proxénétisme en 1999 : fin 2011, le commissaire principal de la ville de Stuttgart déplore l’approche réglementariste allemande : pour lui, les proxénètes sont désormais "comme des coqs en pâte" [4], et seulement 3 à 5% des personnes prostituées sont indépendantes. Confrontée à l’obligation de recueillir une plainte pour agir, la police ne peut rien faire, dans un secteur où les victimes ne témoignent quasiment jamais.

Lors d’une conférence au Parlement européen en décembre dernier, Joëlle Milquet, vice-Première ministre, ministre de l’Intérieur et de l’Egalité des chances, a mentionné un rapport de la police [5] qui estime le nombre de prostituées à 23 000 ; parmi celles-ci, 80% seraient victimes d’exploitation, et 10% de ces victimes se trouveraient dans une situation d’exploitation grave (violences physiques et/ou sexuelles).

Quelle société voulons-nous ? Une société favorisant l’impunité et les profits de l’industrie du sexe, qui donne aux proxénètes un statut d’entrepreneur ? Ou une société qui préserve la sexualité du champ du marché et des violences, qui promeut l’égalité entre les femmes et les hommes, et refuse d’exploiter la précarité des plus vulnérables, en grande majorité des femmes et en grande majorité des étrangères ? Le proxénétisme exploite toutes les formes d’inégalités et de vulnérabilités, nous ne pouvons plus nous taire face à l’impunité croissante dont il bénéficie en Belgique. Signataires

Pierrette Pape, militante féministe, Appel 21 Patric Jean, cinéaste, Appel 21 Pascale Maquestiau, militante féministe, Appel 21 Grégoire Théry, militant abolitionniste, Appel 21

Céline Fremault, Ministre bruxelloise de l’Economie, de l’Emploi, de la Recherche scientifique, du Commerce, du Commerce extérieur, de la Santé, de la Formation des classes moyennes et de la Fonction publique Véronique de Keyser, Eurodéputée, Vice-Présidente du groupe socialiste au Parlement européen, Conseillère communale à Liège Zakia Khattabi, Sénatrice écolo de communauté Viviane Teitelbaum, Députée bruxelloise, Echevine des finances et de la propreté publique à Ixelles

Conseil des Femmes Francophones de Belgique Nederlandstalige Vrouwenraad Les Femmes Prévoyantes Socialistes L’Université des Femmes Le Monde selon les Femmes Osez le Féminisme Belgique ZéroMacho Lobby européen des femmes Appel 21 – pour l’Abolition du Proxénétisme et de la Prostitution, pour l’Egalité et la Liberté

[1] Daalder, A. L. (2007). Prostitution in The Netherlands since the lifting of the brothel ban (EN). The Hague : WODC / Boom Juridische Uitgevers.

[2] KLPD (Korps Landelijke Politiediensten) – Dienst Nationale Recherche (juli 2008). Schone schijn, de signalering van mensenhandel in de vergunde prostitutiesector. Driebergen.

[3] Gemeente Amsterdam, Ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie ; Projectgroep Emergo (2011). Emergo – De gezamenlijke aanpak van de zware (georganiseerde) misdaad in het hart van Amsterdam. Achtergronden, ontwikkelingen, perspectieven. Amsterdam : Boom Juridische Uitgevers.

[4] EMMA ; "Die Zuhälter baden doch in Schampus !" (DE), printemps 2011. Une traduction en français est disponible : "Les proxénètes sont comme coq en pâte".

[5] 80 % des prostituées seraient victimes d’exploitation.

How to get more women on boards in Ireland?

From the National Women’s Council of Ireland

How can we get more women on boards in Ireland? NWCI Members and Friends Meeting Serap Altinisik, Vivienne Jupp, Sinead Donovan, Fiona O’Connor and Orla O’Connor

The NWCI, in conjunction with the European Women’s Lobby, recently held a seminar entitled “Women on Boards: The Next Steps”.

Speakers at the National Women’s Council of Ireland’s seminar on getting women into boardrooms included RTE Board Member Orlaith Carmody, Sinead Donovan from Grant Thornton, CEO’s chairperson Vivienne Jupp, Fiona O’Connor who is the Senior recruiter, Deloitte and Noirin Clancy, Women in to Public Life and 50/50 North-West and European Women’s Lobby representative Serap Altinisik.

The NWCI director, Orla O’Connor said that the low number of women on boards is a wider representation of the inequality within the workplace. The majority of speakers on the panel agreed with the assertion that quotas were needed to address the gender balance.

Only 9pc of Ireland’s publicly traded companies have a woman on their board, while the EU average is 15.8pc. Ireland, along with Bulgaria and Poland, was only one of three EU countries which recorded a fall in the number this year. The EU target is 40pc by 2020.

Ireland is also behind the curve when it comes to the number of women in senior positions, according to research from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report.

Globally 24 per cent of management positions are held by women, however in Ireland that number falls to 21 per cent, Ireland leaving the country in the bottom quartile.

Presentations and biographies of the speakers are available here.

Austerity Leaves Domestic Violence Victims Stranded

Published on Inter Press Service, 26 April 2013, by Claudia Ciobanu

BELGRADE, Apr 26 2013 (IPS) - Up to a quarter of women in Europe have experienced domestic violence at some point in their lives, according to the Council of Europe. But despite the widespread nature of the phenomenon, more often than not we ignore it. A short video launched last month in Serbia managed to break this silence.

At first glance, the clip is just another photo-a-day video popularised on YouTube: photos of a smiling young woman follow one another, offering glimpses of different hairstyles and makeup choices.

But after a while the time-lapse video breaks the pattern. The woman’s eyes start looking sad, scared, and her face is covered in increasingly severe bruises and cuts. In the last image, she holds up a sign that issues a desperate call for help.

Before anyone even knew who the woman was or whether the video was genuine or fiction, it became a hit in Serbia and abroad, reaching two million views in just a few days.

It turned out that the film was in fact part of a campaign by the B92 Fund, a foundation associated with the leading private TV channel in Serbia, to raise awareness about domestic violence in this southeast European country.

In Serbia, over 60 women died as a result of domestic violence between the start of 2012 and today, according to the Autonomous Women’s Centre in Belgrade. And women’s groups claim that every second woman has suffered from verbal or physical abuse at some point in time.

“It is important to talk about this problem so that our society on the whole comprehends that it is not normal to beat women, so that women themselves are encouraged to report violence,” explains Veran Matic, the president of the B92 Fund. “Solidarity, getting people to react, and exerting pressure on authorities to take action on domestic violence are also our goals.”

Matic’s foundation has built five shelters for battered women in six years of work on domestic violence, and plans to open two more this year.

Together with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the B92 Fund also works on lobbying authorities to better implement legislation providing protection from perpetrators of violence and assistance for victims.

B92 tries to harness the popularity and resources of the television station to meet social needs that are not properly fulfilled by state authorities.

For Danijela Pesic from the Autonomous Women’s Centre, which has worked on violence against women for the past two decades, improving the enforcement of legislation already in place is the most important aspect, as it would offer systematic solutions for victims.

She said that shelters, while important, are merely a short-term emergency response.

The other key to combating domestic violence is changing the culture, says Pesic. “The main cause of domestic violence is patriarchal values,” she says. “It is not poverty, lack of education or alcoholism – we are seeing the same rates of abuse in villages and cities, and across educational and wealth levels.

“Men have to stop believing they can be violent, and for this to happen we need to change our perception of gender roles, starting as early as kindergarten.”

Despite noticing some positive changes in Serbia over the past few years – importantly, women are feeling increasingly empowered – Pesic fears that the lack of systematic state support for actors working in the area of domestic violence might jeopardise progress.

Financing is patchy, often coming in the shape of project-based donations from the West, which inevitably run out without being replaced. As a consequence, for example, call centres for victims are forced to close down after only a few years, just as women are starting to rely on them.

Serbia is not yet a member of the European Union. And as a Balkan country, it has a reputation of being prone to machismo.

Yet the approach to domestic violence in this country is not untypical of the situation across many European countries: optimal legislation is adopted to meet EU standards, but state authorities fail to implement it properly; financing for non-governmental groups working on domestic violence is insufficient; and patriarchal values persist.

A 2012 report by the Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE) network shows that only a third of European countries meet Council of Europe recommendations when it comes to a national free of charge helpline for victims of domestic violence.

In terms of shelter availability, the situation is worse: only five of 46 countries studied offer the necessary number of places, with Central and Eastern European countries performing worse than their Western counterparts.

Many post-socialist countries have started taking measures for preventing domestic violence and assisting victims more intensively only over the past decade. In Estonia, for instance, all of the country’s ten shelters opened in the last five years, financed by a combination of governmental and non-profit sources.

But many women’s groups across the region express doubts over whether the centres and other forms of assistance for victims will be able to continue operating in the future. The already precarious sustainability of the financing is being put under severe strain by the economic crisis.

A 2010 report by Oxfam and the European Women’s Lobby, “Women’s Poverty and Social Exclusion in the European Union at a Time of Recession: An Invisible Crisis?”, quotes NGOs across Central and Eastern Europe declaring that an increasing number of women have been calling helplines and requesting access to shelters since the crisis began.

This information (not yet quantified at the European level) is in line with the general view that economic turmoil leads to an increase in frequency and intensity of domestic abuse.

The same groups are also reporting negative impacts of austerity measures implemented across Europe in response to the crisis: from the closing of shelters in Romania and complaints by Slovakian NGOs that they have been hurt by the withdrawal of foreign donors to Estonian groups arguing they cannot plan for the long term because of a lack of support from local authorities.

EU funds, primarily in the form of the Daphne Programme, which offers financing to many of the women’s rights initiatives across the region, are also under question. The EU’s seven-year budget is getting renewed at the moment and the austerity wave in Europe has already led to an announcement of a reduction of its overall size.

While the European Commission told IPS that it proposed that women’s rights and gender equality programmes receive a similar amount of funding as before (the intended amount is approximately 800 million euros for the next seven years), some fear the fund will be significantly trimmed during further negotiations.

“While the recession and austerity measures are having a detrimental effect on the prevalence of violence against women, they are also having a negative effect on women’s ability to escape the violence,” comments Pierrette Pape from the European Women’s Lobby.

“Women’s economic independence is undermined while public services face funding cuts and cannot therefore provide adequate quality services,” Pape adds. “NGO-led services to support women victims of violence are also threatened by the tendering and marketisation of services, which leaves behind and in isolation many women and girls affected by male violence.”

Without James Bond: Women, money and power

Category: Articles and Commentary Author: haydenb

A 2012 historical study covering 85 per cent of the world’s population has proved that women’s organisations were crucial for policy change towards more equal societies; a role that has already been acknowledged by the United Nations in many documents, notably through its Commission on the Status of Women. Yet, the recent economic crisis has led to the financial uncertainty of NGOs and women’s organisations, and Central Europe is no exception to the rule.

If civil societies in the region of Central Europe can be vivid and politicised, as the Visegrad Revue recently showed, it would seem that feminism remains a “dirty word” and government policies still largely ignore the issue of women’s rights and equality in the region. However, a greater empowerment of women’s organisations would allow for an improvement of these rights at a moment when they face both traditional challenges and the challenges associated with the economic crisis.

A Crisis? Where?

Facing crises is nothing new to Central European women. The economic transitions may have also left a bitter taste to many men, but as Amélie Bonnet, a French researcher, at the 2012 V4SciencesPo Conference on Women and Feminism(s) in the Visegrad region noted: “Because the gender roles had not changed, the new requirements [for example at work] were likely to have more adverse effects on women.” Yet, the crisis shook Central Europe at a time when the region was supposed to be coming out of the transition from the communist system.

The general ignorance of women’s economic issues by local governments and the media makes it hard to quantify the full impact of the crisis on women in the region. The Network of East-West Women, based in Poland, assessed the national statistical methods and found that data on the labour market or poverty are rarely disaggregated by gender. Not documenting a problem is the most certain way to ignore it.

Bits and pieces of information can be found mostly in reports of international organisations and NGOs, and generally do show the consequences that the current crisis has. In 2009, at the outset of the crisis, the European Commission in its report on equality warned that, “the economic slowdown is likely to affect women more than men”. An assumption, however, that does not seem to have obtained much attention since.

Eurostat figures from 2011 show that the gender employment gap is persistent. The difference still went up to 25 per cent in Poland and Slovakia, and Central European women are still earning on average only 80 per cent of their male colleagues’ salaries today. Consequently, entering retirement with 20 per cent lower pensions, elderly women are particularly at risk of poverty. In fact, the direct effect of the crisis on public services in the region affects women both as employees and beneficiaries of state aid. As many of these employees are women, they are directly hit by staff reductions. But they also are the ones who substitute for the state when childcare or elderly facilities are closed down.

As Slovakian expert Zora Bútorová noted at the V4SciencesPo conference: “Women are first and foremost seen as those taking care of the household.” In 2011, according to the EC pension study, part-time jobs in the whole of the V4 region have systematically been occupied by at least twice more women than men. Meaning, of course, lower benefits and pensions. An Oxfam and European Women’s Lobby (EWL) survey shows that women in the region express more worries than men about the current crisis, anticipating notably future financial difficulties and paying more attention to variations in food prices. These perceptions prove, if necessary, the preponderant role that women still play in family care.

Indeed, policy responses in the region have rather been on the austerity side. Austerity packages included notably cuts in pension and public sector expenses as well as the suppression of public transport or energy subsidies, as adopted in Hungary. A collective of European and international women’s organisations emphasised that this increase in costs for households is mainly borne by women. Costly transportation, for example, deters young mothers in rural areas from signing children up for childcare and therefore forces them to stay at home. Central European women also paid the price for austerity measures adopted in neighbouring Western European countries. Public financial support to care-related activities decreased in Austria, threatening the jobs of approximately 25,000 Slovaks working for Austrian families. Czechs and Poles faced similar difficulties, although to a lesser extent, in Germany.

The public policy response has yet to systematically address the challenges faced by women. Rather, women’s organisations are the ones who have specifically and consistently tackled these questions. One example is the Karat Coalition, a network of women’s rights organisations in Central Europe, which advocates for regional economic literacy programmes, providing women with the basic knowledge of economics. The 2012 AWID (Association for Women in Development) Forum in Istanbul brought together different women’s organisations dedicated to “transforming economic power to advance women’s rights and justice”. But the question still remains, as these organisations replace the state in helping women, is it enough to make significant strides to reverse the trends?

Funding and policy challenges

As noted above, precise data on women’s organisations is very difficult to obtain. Because of their diversity, such organisations are difficult to track across the region and assess. Many of these organisations are grassroots movements. Their limited resources often restrain their size and visibility.

The data does show, however, that the financial condition of these groups, which was hardly solid before the crisis, has drastically worsened over the past five years. In some cases, public and private funding fell by up to 40 per cent in the region. A 2010 regional strategy meeting organised by AWID and the International Network of Women’s Funds (INWF) revealed that 61 per cent of women’s organisations in the region currently have a budget of less than 50,000 US dollars per year. As budgets shrink, the services they provide become more limited.

The crisis has impacted financial resources in diverse ways. On average, American and European foundations saw a decrease of 15 to 22 per cent of their assets in 2008-2009, which forced many to withdraw from the non-governmental sector. A report on European foundations funding for women shows that although many foundations in Central Europe express a strong interest in the area of civil society, justice and human rights, women’s organisations are far from being their main beneficiaries. They mainly receive money from specialised women’s funds, which are not among the biggest donors and therefore can only provide small and limited grants. The Slovak-Czech Women’s Fund has only been able to distribute 431,000 euros to 173 organisations over the past five years, which amounts to an average grant of 2,500 euros. Arguably, such grants guarantee a consistent and long-term impact.

Public funding followed the same path, with the OECD showing that Official Development Assistance funds in Europe, of which already only 12 per cent was used specifically for women’s rights, have fallen by 40 per cent between 2008 and 2010.

Back on the radar

How to put women on the “crisis agenda” is not only a Central European issue. At the EU level, the debates have also rarely touched the matter. A recent assessment of European economic strategies undertaken by the European Commission’s department for citizens’ rights and constitutional affairs, unveiled that gender equality was “surprisingly infrequent” with no mention made of national and regional women’s organisations. On the V4 regional scale, it only means women’s voices are barely heard and their chances to influence strategic policies appear to be extremely limited.

Women’s movements are just like any other civil society organisation: they need resources to sustain their activities, especially at a moment when the demand for their services is on the rise. However, not only did the crisis worsen the economic situation of women and lower the possibilities for funding of women’s organisations, but recent political responses have not yet fully taken into account the gender dimension. Thus, women’s organisations are currently fighting on many fronts with fewer resources, while data shows they have the potential to play a major role in the resolution of the crisis at a regional level. “Where there is money, there is power,” declared Kinga Lohmann, head of the Karat Coalition. Let’s also just bring women into that equation.

Aurore Guieu is currently working as a Junior Researcher for the International Centre for Reproductive Health (ICRH), Belgium. She obtained a MA in European Affairs from SciencesPo Paris, France, and also studied at the Metropolitan University in the Czech Republic. She has been General Secretary for the V4SciencesPo association since 2011.

The V4SciencesPo association aims at strengthening the links between SciencesPo, one of France’s major universities in political and social sciences, and the Visegrad 4 countries. Through conferences, roundtables, and social events, the association seeks to gather V4 and French students and to make Central Europe more visible in France. This article is linked to the conference "Women, Feminism(s) and Gender in the V4 Countries", which was organised by the association on September 18th 2012, in Paris. For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/v4sciencespo and www.v4sciencespo.eu (currently under construction).

From New Eastern Europe: http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/784

Quotas needed to boost equality in Irish boardrooms, conference told

(Thursday 02 May) From The Irish Times

Quotas needed to boost equality in Irish boardrooms, conference told.

Ireland falls behind global average in number of women in senior management positions

Irish boardrooms could face more than a century of gender inequality unless quotas and initiatives to get women into senior management positions are put in place, according to a meeting held by the National Women’s Council of Ireland yesterday.

Calls for gender quotas come as the number of women in senior positions in Irish companies lags behind the global average.

The drive to get women into decision-making positions in business is growing as studies suggest companies with more diverse boards perform better and take fewer risks.

Calls for change at the top have also grown since the financial crisis when it was questioned if male-dominated boardrooms encouraged a culture of increased risk taking, contributing to the financial crisis.

Slow pace
The number of women on Irish boards, even in non-executive positions, has risen at a slow pace over the past decade.

European Women’s Lobby representative Serap Altinisik says, “The proportion of women on boards in Ireland has risen very gradually from just under 7 per cent in 2003 to around 9 per cent in 2012. This represents an average increase of just 0.12 percentage points per year; at this rate of change on non-executive boards, to reach at least 40 per cent would not be achieved for well over a century.”

Ireland is also behind the curve when it comes to the number of women in senior positions, according to research from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report.

Globally 24 per cent of management positions are held by women, however in Ireland that number falls to 21 per cent. On a worldwide basis, 19 per cent of board representation is made up of women; once again in Ireland that figure falls to 17 per cent, leaving the country in the bottom quartile when it comes to both measures.

National Women’s Council of Ireland director Orla O’Connor says, “The fact that there is such a low number of women on boards is part of the low representation of women at senior level in decision-making in Ireland. What you’re seeing is a wider reflection of women’s inequality within the workforce and it means we have to do other things within the workforce to have women who are ready to go on to boards . . . That’s why the National Women’s Council is saying we have to put a quota in place, this change is not going to occur naturally.”

The reason why women don’t make it into the boardroom is because many don’t remain in the workplace at an executive level, according to Media Training director and RTÉ board member Orlaith Carmody.

“In order for women to be visible and to be within the pool from which you’re going to be selected, you have to have emerged within the executive level. A lot of women have dropped out of the executive pool after mid-management level, they don’t make it as far as senior management level,” says Ms Carmody.

Research suggests the gender pay gap and childcare issues contribute to women failing to reach senior management levels.

In Ireland the gender pay gap stands at 4 per cent among the bottom 10 per cent of earners but that figure jumps to 24.6 per cent when it comes to the top 10 per cent of earners.

Lower pay
Lower pay for women and a lack of paternity leave in Ireland also contribute to women leaving the workforce.

According to figures from the Organisation for Cooperation and Development, Irish employment rates for women with three children are as low as 45.2 per cent.

“I believe there is a necessity for quotas . . . if we didn’t need quotas, already diversity would be much better than it is. Clearly it is still very poor and therefore we need to do something about it,” says Ms Carmody.

Caelainn Barr http://www.irishtimes.com/business/...

Mary Collins Femmes : le plafond de verre ? Premières victimes de la crise ?

Femmes : le plafond de verre ? Premières victimes de la crise ? Mary Collins, lobby européen des femmes, Elisabeth Morin-Chartier, eurodéputée UMP, et Florence Autret, journaliste économique ont participee a l’emission de BFM Buisness consacree aux femmes.

Pour ecouter l’emission, le podcast est disponible ici.

Event: "Gender Equality: Is a quota system the best approach?"

(Brussels 14 March 2013) The hotly debated role of quotas provided the context for a recently held Euractiv workshop. Cecile Greboval of the European Women’s Lobby defended the introduction of quota systems for Europe at the debate, where the question ’Gender Equality: Is a quota system the best approach?’ was debated by Rosalinde Van der Vlies of the European Commission, Kara McGann of IBEC, and Jane Kirk, Director at Armstrong Craven.

Euractiv recorded the event and created the following video clip. Watch Cecile Greboval defend the implementation of quotas from 00.30 minutes in.

One billion rising coverage: Flashmob tegen geweld op vrouwen, Brussels (flemish)

LEF-online.be, 15 February 2013

Op St. Valentijn dansten 500 enthousiaste feministes op het Brusselse Muntplein om op te komen tegen het geweld waarvan 1 miljard vrouwen het slachtoffer zijn.

Voor de achtergronden van deze actie verwijzen wij naar het artikel Valentijn flashmob in Brussel tegen geweld op vrouwen op deze website.

Na de flashmob was er een (pers)conferentie in de Gotische zaal van het Stadhuis. Karin Lalieu (PS), Schepen sprak haar steun en waardering uit.voor de actie Zij wees op het belang voor het bijbrengen van respect voor meisjes van in de kleuterklas, zoals in het Brusselse stadsonderwijs gebeurt.

Europees parlementslid Tarabella (PS) maakt deel uit van de werkgroep gendergelijkheid in het Europarlement. Deze werkgroep ijvert voor een Europees jaar voor de gendergelijkeheid.

Magda De Meyere (Vrouwenraad) en Viviane Teitelbaum (Conseil des Femmes) wezen er op dat vrouwenmishandeling voor het grootste deel intrafamiliaal gebeurd en niet alleen in verre landen, maar evengoed bij ons een probleem is.

Via onderstaande link kunt u enkele foto’s van deze geslaagde actie bekijken.

https://picasaweb.google.com/101161532789719614865/20130214OneBillion

Viviane Teitelbaum : "Le féminisme n’est pas désuet"

aufeminin.be, 08 Mars 2013

Viviane Teitelbaum est Présidente du Conseil des Femmes Francophones de Belgique et du Lobby européen des femmes. Alors qu’elle se trouve à New-York pour participer aux débats de la Commission de L’ONU sur le statut de la femme dans le monde, on fait le point sur l’utilité du féminisme d’aujourd’hui. 4 questions à l’occasion de cette journée consacrée aux droits des femmes.

Certains disent que les grands temps du féminisme sont derrière nous. Pour vous, une journée des droits des femmes, c’est encore utile aujourd’hui ?

C’est très utile dans le sens où ça permet de casser le mythe selon lequel on aurait les femmes auraient ce qu’elles voulaient ça et que l’égalité homme femme est atteinte ! Il faut des journées comme celle-ci qui contribue à la sensibilisation avec des accents mis sur différentes problématiques aigu, ça permet de casser cette fausse image. On est encore loin d’être égaux aujourd’hui, c’est un fait. Et ce dans pas mal de problématiques où les discriminations sont toujours très présentes l’emploi, la représentation dans les différents métiers, dans les média, par rapport aux violences.

Justement cette année, le débat au sein de l’ONU à l’occasion de la journée de la femme se concentre sur la lutte contre la violence faite aux femmes. Un combat que l‘on juge souvent comme du ressort des pays pauvre. Quelle est votre position ?

Les violence faites aux femmes sont une injustice énorme, un fléau social qui touche toutes les femmes de toutes les cultures, de toutes les conditions sociales. Dans le monde, une sur trois sera victime de violences au cours de sa vie. En Europe, 7 femme meurt en Europe pour cause de violence, c’est la cause de mortalité la plus élevée pour les femmes entre 15 et 44 ans. Il faut prendre conscience que c’est un problème qui touche de près ou de loin, la plupart des foyers.

Le 14 février, des centaines de femmes ont dansé à Bruxelles contre la violences faites aux femmes. L’action One Billion Rising à réunit des milliers de femmes dnas le monde.

Car même en Belgique, on touche une femme sur cinq en Belgique et chaque jour 8 plaintes pour viol sont déposées, une seule aboutie. On n’a pas encore les structures de soutien qu’il faut, on le voit dans toutes les conséquences qui en découlent, les blessures physiques et psychologiques et les causes, comme la prostitution... Il faut une approche globale de cette violence. La problématique n’est pas assez souvent soulevée dans les médias, certes on parle des femmes à l’occasion du 8 mars, de la journée contre la violence faite aux femmes ou du One billion rising, mais globalement le problème de fond n’est pas suffisamment mis en lumière.

Quel est le cheval de bataille qui vous préoccupe le plus ?

Personnellement, la première chose qui me tienne à cœur, c’est la transmission vers les plus jeunes femmes. Il faut aider à ce qu’elles prennent conscience que le féminisme n’est pas dépassé, que c’est ni un gros mot, ni rébarbatif. Au contraire, c’est quelque chose de dynamique de constructif qui contribue aux valeurs démocratiques. Très souvent, les jeunes femmes qui débutent leur vie de femme ont, soit l’impression que le féminisme est déplacé ou désuet, soit une image ringarde des féministes vues comme des hystériques, comme les suffragettes d’une époque révolue.

Je veux leur dire, faites attention, si à 20 ans on est égaux, les femmes ont un accès aux études, elles réussissent bien, elles ont une impression d’un monde qui leur appartient aussi, et plus tard, quand on est rattrapé par cette vie familiale, professionnel, ou les deux, on se rend compte de la problématique du féminisme. Appropriez-vous ce concept comme vous vous appropriez les combats antiracistes ou anti-homophobes, et ne vous laissées pas piégées par des emplois à temps partiels car cela fait partie du combat démocratique. Cette transmission, cette éducation aux jeunes femmes est primordiale pour le futur.

Face à des propos comme ceux de Carla Bruni Sarkozy* , quelle est votre réaction ?

C’est une bêtise ! Quand on est une femme plus privilégié avec un accès favorisé sur le plan économique, social et médiatique, on n’a peut-être plus besoin du féminisme pour s’épanouir et consolider sa vie professionnelle et familiale. Elle ne fait que contribue ce cliché qui est de dire qu’on en a plus l’utilité. Pensons déjà aux inégalités salariales ou des discriminations à l’embauche qui persistent dans nos pays, et à ces femmes qui sont venus aujourd’hui à l’ONU de pays du printemps arabes, de zones de combats (Mali, Congo, par exemple) et d’autres zones défavorisés, celles-ci ne peuvent que se sentir que désolidarisées par rapport à ce type de discours.

Quel conseil donneriez-vous aux femmes qui voudraient agir dans leur quotidien pour les autres femmes ?

Ce n’est pas facile quand on est seule de se défendre. Il faut prendre conscience si une à une les hommes et femmes font un pas, ça fera un effet plus fort. C’est une action collection que les femmes ne peuvent pas le faire sans les hommes. Il faut avoir un dialogue ouvert et constructif en permanence entre les hommes et les femmes.

Web : www.cffb.be et www.womenlobby.org

* On n’a pas besoin d’être féministe dans ma génération. Il y a des pionnières qui ont ouvert la brèche. Je ne suis pas du tout militante féministe. En revanche, je suis bourgeoise (…) J’aime la vie de famille, j’aime faire tous les jours la même chose. J’aime maintenant avoir un mari.