Call for submissions - Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality begins its work

Published: Tuesday, February 11, 2020

The Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality has begun its work. The citizens met for the first time on 25th January and will be meeting again on the 14th and 15th February to commence its deliberations The Assembly, chaired by Dr Catherine Day, former Secretary General of the European Commission is tasked with bringing forward proposals to advance gender equality. The Assembly will be sitting until July 2020.

NWCI hosted a members and friends meeting on Tuesday 4th February to hear about our members priorities. A key theme from the discussion was the importance of including the experiences of diverse women, in acknowledgement that our experiences are shaped not only by gender but by our experiences as migrants, disabled people, members of the Travelleing community, our LGBTQI+ identity, living in a rural area and our age, income and education.

The Assembly is now inviting submissions from members of the public and NWCI would encourage all to make a submission before the deadline of 6th March. A submission does not need to be long and can be a letter. 

NWCI will be making a submission and calling for recommendations to address care, economic equality and leadership. We will be recommending a referendum on Art 41.2 to replace the current outdated Article with a gender neutral and inclusive acknowledgement of the value of care. We will also be calling for a series of key legislative actions to ensure socio-economic rights are upheld, including funding a comprehensive, affordable and accessible care infrastructure, placing equality budgeting on a statutory footing, legislating for the living wage, benchmarking social welfare rates to the MESL and legislating for quotas in the workplace, politics and public life. Throughout our submission, we will highlight the experiences of diverse women and in particular, women who experience multiple and intersecting disadvantage.