Campaigning for women’s equality at EU level
Published: Wednesday, October 24, 2012
The NWCI is the Irish national co-ordination of the European Women's Lobby (EWL), the largest umbrella organisation of women associations in the EU. The EWL Board meeting took place last weekend in Brussels where the meeting kicked off with a very timely seminar on Beating the Backlash: Moving Beyond an Anti-Feminist Agenda. Over the last decade and a half feminists and women's organisations have been witnessing strong attacks on women's rights in Europe and worldwide: questioning, regression and blatant violations of fundamental rights have become all too common. In this context EWL members have expressed the wish to work together to define new common strategies to place women's rights right back at the heart of the political agenda. This will be the dominant theme of the work of the EWL over the coming year.
The EWL work spans many different areas of women's rights, including policies on male violence against women, women in decision making, European gender equality and anti-discrimination policies and legislation. A major area of work is ensuring the integration of feminist perspective in EU economic, employment and social issues and policies, in order to fight women's poverty and social exclusion, to advance towards women's economic independence and address the gender pay gap.
The EWL will soon launch a publication called 'The price of austerity: assessing the impact on women's rights and gender equality in Europe'. This latest report from EWL based on data from EWL member organisations in 13 countries including Ireland and recent research from a range of sources reveals that austerity policies in Europe undermine women's rights, perpetuate existing gender inequalities, create new ones and hamper the prospects of sustainable and equal economic progress in Europe.
For more information on the EWL, please contact Jacqueline Healy, Women's Health and Human Rights Worker at jacquelineh@nwci.ie or log onto their website at www.womenlobby.org