31/03/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Francine John-Calame (Switzerland, SOC) is to speak at a seminar being held in Kinshasa from 30 to 31 March, by the Network of Women Parliamentarians of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (Assembly of parliamentarians with an interest in French-speaking concerns). The seminar will concern monitoring of implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the role of women parliamentarians in conflict resolution. Two reports connected with these issues are being prepared by the PACE Equal Opportunities Committee, one on "Sexual violence against women in armed conflict" and the other on "Involving women in the prevention and solution of unsolved conflicts in the Council of Europe area".
24/03/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“The media have enormous potential to foster gender equality, but they tend to perpetuate negative portrayals of women, focusing for the most part on their physical or emotional attributes and confining them all too often to stereotypical roles”, said Doris Stump (Switzerland, SOC) today at a hearing held in Paris by the PACE’s Equality Committee. “The media have a key part to play in shaping individual identities, particularly among young people, and the constant clichés purveyed by the media become rooted in the collective sub-conscience, casting each gender in a fixed role”, said Ms Stump.
19/03/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
How are women portrayed in the media? Do the media promote sexist stereotypes? What is their impact in society, especially among young people? What can be done to combat these stereotypes? What is the responsibility of the media? All these questions will be discussed at a PACE hearing organised by the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, to be held in Paris on Tuesday 24 March. The hearing is the initiative of Doris Stump (Switzerland, SOC), who is currently preparing a report on “Combating sexist stereotypes in the media”.
06/03/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“A genuine democracy needs women in high posts,” said Lydie Err (Luxembourg, SOC), who chairs PACE's Sub-Committee on Equal Participation of Women and Men in Decision-making, speaking on the occasion of International Women’s Day. “And it is political parties which have a key role to play in ensuring that women have access to elected posts and positions,” she added. The Assembly has called for guidelines for political parties to be put into place to reinforce gender equality within political parties, she pointed out.
05/03/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“The under-representation of women in elected posts is quite simply unacceptable in societies which are supposed to be democratic, and we have to find new ways of giving women access to decision-making processes" said Carmen Quintanilla Barba (Spain EPP/CD), a member of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, speaking in Brussels today at the European Parliament conference on Women and European Elections.
12/12/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“I welcome the decision by the Committee of Ministers to approve the terms of reference of an ad hoc committee to draft a legal instrument aiming at preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence,” said Carina Hägg, Chair of the PACE Sub-Committee on Violence against Women. “Thanks to the involvement of Assembly members and the efforts of the Committee of Ministers supported by Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, it is now possible to start work on drafting a convention,” she added.
05/12/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Girls in Europe’s schools receive less attention than boys and are treated by teachers in ways that reinforce gender stereotypes, educational experts told members of PACE’s Equal Opportunities Committee today at a hearing in Paris. Professor Carrie Paechter from the University of London described how, unconsciously, “classrooms become geared to boys’ interests”, while Professor Christiane Spiel from the University of Vienna showed how teachers’ own beliefs about gender could influence their pupils.
05/12/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Council of Europe countries should do much more to help girls, mostly from immigrant communities, who are forced by their families to return to their countries of origin to be “forcibly married, circumcised or enslaved”, according to a PACE draft report approved today. Antigoni Papadopoulos (Cyprus, ALDE), who prepared the report for PACE’s Committee on Equal Opportunities, pointed out that women from Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities were particularly at risk, where “maintaining family honour or ancestral customs” sometimes took precedence over human rights.
03/12/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Should boys and girls in Europe be taught separately? Should teachers treat them differently? Do teachers unconsciously discriminate against girls? Leading educationists from Austria and the United Kingdom will draw on the latest academic research to debate these questions at a parliamentary hearing on “The rights of today’s girls, the rights of tomorrow’s women” in Paris on Friday 5 December.
27/11/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Council of Europe Deputy Secretary General Maud de Boer-Buquicchio has expressed the hope that governments will make speedy progress in negotiations on a framework convention to combat violence against women. "What is really important – and this was one of the main objectives of our campaign – is that we should have clear, specific, binding rules for combating violence against women," she said, addressing members of PACE’s Sub-Committee on Violence against Women in Madrid.
27/11/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
The Spanish Minister responsible for equal opportunities, Bibiana Aído, expressed her support this morning for PACE Recommendation 1847 (2008), which calls on European governments to prepare a Council of Europe framework convention on the severest and most widespread forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment, forced marriages, "honour" crimes and female genital mutilation. "An accurate, reliable diagnosis of the phenomenon of violence against women is the first step towards combating it more effectively,” said Ms. Aído.
24/11/2008 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Recent developments in Spain in the field of combating gender-based violence, and the effects of the Spanish law on integrated protection measures for the victims, will be discussed at the meeting of the Sub-committee on Violence against Women in Madrid on 27 November. The Spanish Minister for Equality, Bibiana Aído, is scheduled to participate in this exchange of views. The sub-committee will also be assessing progress with the drafting of a Council of Europe convention on combating violence against women.