25/09/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig will present the Assembly’s 2009 Equality Prize in Strasbourg on Wednesday 30 September, at a ceremony to be held during its autumn session (28 September-2 October). The winner of the first prize, the Portuguese Socialist Party (Partido Socialista), represented by Pedro Silva Pereira, Portuguese Minister of the Presidency, will receive the trophy, a statuette by the artist Ewa Rossano, and will be offered a co-operation activity under the aegis of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. The winners of the second and third prizes, the British Labour Party and the Swedish Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) respectively, will receive a diploma.
08/09/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Widespread public attitudes to rape which tend to shift the blame from the attacker to the victim are a major obstacle to the reporting, effective investigation and prosecution of cases of rape and sexual assault, according to a report adopted today in Paris by the PACE Equal Opportunities Committee on the rape of women, including marital rape. The report, which will be discussed by PACE at a coming plenary session, recommends the launch of a Council of Europe campaign to change those attitudes.
08/09/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities today designated the three winners of the PACE Gender Equality Prize. The first winner is the Portuguese Socialist Party, Partido Socialista, followed by the British Labour Party and Swedish left-wing party Vänsterpartiet. All three were rewarded for the steps they had taken to significantly improve women’s participation in their parties or in the elected assemblies of their respective countries.
25/06/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
"Women have limited access to resources and decision-making. On the other hand, they are often the main victims of conflicts," said Krista Kiuru (Finland, SOC), rapporteur of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, at the fifth meeting of women members of the Assembly. "The gender perspective and the contribution of women are a crisis management tool and must be incorporated into conflict prevention and resolution, but there will be no fundamental change until there is a change in mentalities," stressed the parliamentarian, who is preparing a report on the subject.
22/06/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“Parliamentarians need to pay special attention to the six countries which have neither signed nor ratified the Council of Europe Convention on ‘Action against Trafficking in Human Beings’ so far,” today said Gisela Wurm (Austria, SOC), PACE rapporteur on the subject, during an exchange of views, organised by the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men on the fringes of the PACE summer session. “The problem of possible duplication of monitoring work with other organisations, in particular the EU, constitutes another concern,” Ms Wurm added, emphasizing the importance of cooperation with all actors in the field.
17/06/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“Combating violence against women, especially in the private sphere, should be enhanced in Europe with a legally binding instrument. I therefore invite the Ministers of Justice to support the current drafting of a convention which can effectively combat the most widespread and most severe forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, and that should encompass the gender dimension”, declared in Tromsø Carina Hägg (Sweden, SOC), Chair of the PACE Sub-Committee on violence against women, at the opening of the 29th Conference of Council of Europe Ministers of Justice.
15/05/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Supporting a report by Miet Smet (Belgium, EPP/CD) on sexual violence against women in armed conflict, the PACE Equal Opportunities Committee has approved a series of measures to ensure that justice is done whenever a women is raped during an armed conflict. The committee considers that in order to put a stop to sexual violence against women in armed conflict, it is vital to include this crime against humanity in the future Council of Europe Convention on the severest and most widespread forms of violence against women.
15/05/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“All the necessary background legal regulations to combat violence against women have been enacted in Turkey, but they are not yet fully implemented, thus it is difficult to say that these regulations can eradicate violence against women,“ said Turkey’s Minister responsible for Family and Women’s Affairs Selma Kavaf, speaking at the first meeting of the PACE network of contact parliamentarians on combating violence against women, taking place today in Istanbul.
14/05/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“No religion advocates so-called ‘honour crimes’, and there is no honour in these crimes,” said John Austin (United Kingdom, SOC), at a meeting of the PACE Equality Committee in Istanbul today. “All forms of violence against women in the name of traditional codes of honour must be considered to be crimes, unacceptable in any culture, and be harshly punished by the courts. We should not concede any form of social and cultural relativism,” said Mr Austin, the author of a report on the urgent need to combat these crimes, which was today approved by the Equality Committee.
11/05/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
At a meeting in Istanbul on Thursday 14 May, the Equality Committee of PACE will discuss the report by John Austin (United Kingdom, SOC) on the urgent need for action on so-called “honour crimes”, which sets out specific legislative, preventive and victim-protection measures for dealing with this violation of women’s fundamental rights. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that a total of up to 5,000 people a year fall victim to “honour” killings.
09/04/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
"It is time for Europe to become an area devoted to the protection and promotion of the fundamental rights of women," declared José Mendes Bota, PACE Rapporteur on "Combating violence against women: towards a Council of Europe convention", on the occasion of the first meeting of the Ad hoc Committee on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. This committee is preparing one or several binding legal texts in this field.
01/04/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
The North-South Centre of the Council of Europe and the PACE Sub-Committee on Equal Participation of Women and Men in Decision-Making will be holding a conference on the theme: “status and political participation: women as agents of change in the Euro-Mediterranean region” in Lisbon on 2 and 3 April 2009. Lydie Err (Luxembourg, SOC), Chairperson of the Sub-Committee, José Mendes Bota (Portugal, EPP/CD), Vice-Chairperson of the PACE Equal Opportunities Committee, Christine McCafferty (United Kingdom, SOC), Chairperson of the PACE Social Affairs Committee, and other members of PACE will speak about the participation of women in politics, society and economic life and changes in family codes and women’s rights in the Euro-Mediterranean area.