WUNRN
http://www.efi-ife.org/page/our-platform
EUROMED FEMINIST INITIATIVE - PLATFORM
Social and political development has been taking place all over the world
without the equal participation of women in decision-making. Women’s needs have
been marginalized and women’s demands are missing from political, social and
economic agendas. Consequently, policies addressing women’s everyday life
conditions from the perspective of gender equality and with respect of their
universal human rights are largely absent, in spite of relevant resolutions and
laws having been passed in some countries.
New developments are undermining women's rights, especially in the southern
Euro-Med region. Armed conflicts are increasing, exacerbated by the entrenching
of a culture of religious extremism, causing massive militarization, military
expenditure, the transfer of weapons, and above all the death of civilians.
State actors are silencing those who call for the upholding of human and
women's rights under the pretext of national security.
Consequently, women face numerous obstacles due to discriminative
patriarchal structures, practices and procedures as well as social and cultural
attitudes. Violence against women is being used as an extreme form of
domination and control of women’s participation.
Democracy demands equal participation and sharing of power, duties and responsibilities.
Democracy implies freedom, dignity, physical and psychological integrity, equal
access for women and men to resources and opportunities, health education and
decision-making. It also requires that gender equality be a founding value in all
constitutions as well as the elimination of discrimination based on gender,
ethnic origin, handicap, belief or other characteristics.
According to international human rights standards, laws on gender equality
should be adopted in all countries in the Euro-Med and become binding with
appropriate allocation of resources to enable their implementation.
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IFE-EFI demands that gender equality
becomes a priority in all the Euro-Med political processes and therefore
expects the: ·
Establishment of Ministries of Gender Equality in all
countries of Euro-Med region. ·
Adoption of gender equality laws grounded in the
international women’s rights mechanisms. ·
Forming of women’s rights or gender equality committees
in the national assemblies. ·
Engendering of national budgets and introducing of
gender based statistics. |
Women’s rights and human rights must be at the core of all transitional and
reform processes that take place in the Euro-Med region and at the core of all
policies addressing the economic crises in Europe; otherwise reform processes
towards democracy will remain an illusion. Research and studies have uncovered
time after time how gender power barriers and public structures exclude women
from decision-making positions and the political sphere.
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IFE-EFI calls upon the adoption in the
Euro-Med region of parity laws in the fields of political, economic and
social life, combined with legally and constitutionally binding measures for
their implementation. |
An ultra-liberal orientation of policies reproduces the subordination of
women who are in turn subjected to unemployment, precariousness and
instability, professional inequalities, and minimum or even nonexistent
retirement benefits. In the southern countries, the majority of women don’t
benefit from health coverage provided by the State and maternal and neonatal
mortality rates are high. There is a high rate of illiteracy among rural women
and the globalized economic system of capitalism based on profit and negligence
of human development has become fatal for all human beings as well as for our
planet. Together with increasing militarism and conservative trends, it has
generated social disaster and led to an unprecedented decline in the
observation of fundamental rights, in particular those of women, which the
feminist movement has fought so hard to achieve.
The absence or the dismantling of public services hinders social
protection. The maintenance or the transfer of States’ responsibilities to the
domestic sphere penalizes women first and foremost. We call upon States to
invest in all social sectors and especially in health, education and home
services, which are mainly occupied by women, if we are to speak of social
justice that is not gender blind. These services should be recognized by social
status and a relevant corresponding economic redistribution.
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IFE-EFI calls upon all the governments in
the Euro-Med region to take adequate measures to: ·
Ensure the right of women to work, to secure jobs and
to equal pay for equal job. ·
Make social and health protection an economic priority
and adopt in this field laws based on international conventions on economic
and social rights. ·
Make policies that enable women and men to combine
family and professional life. |
The people in the Euro-Med region are facing uncertain times. Unprecedented
deterioration is taking place, severely threatening peoples, civil society and
rights to freedom, justice and peace. Women and women’s rights defenders are in
particular being targeted. The tragic situation in countries of war and the
occupation of Palestine have created a climate of fear and insecurity in the
entire region. History has shown that military interventions cannot resolve
conflicts. Achieving sustainable peace therefore calls for comprehensive
political action.
Saying “no” to war and militarization implies independence from NATO. The
European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) does not incorporate human and
women´s security and neither encourages nor demands disarmament. It justifies
invasions and military interventions, even if history demonstrates that
military solutions to conflicts never bring freedom to people.
The UN concept of human security misses the fact that the threat against
women`s security lies also within the relations of their affiliation. Women are
the victims of violence committed by their nearest partners and men in their
family in their own home. At the same time violence used by armies and armed
conflict in war justifies rape and sexual humiliation in addition to violence
against women at home. Security problems constitute the everyday multi-layered
discrimination women experience within societies that sustain their oppression,
subordination, inequality, and crippling sense of insecurity.
A transformation of security and defense policies into civil policies for
civil protection is therefore a necessary measure to ensure true and
sustainable peace and to promote an alternative to the destruction of life,
human beings and the environment. In other words, a demilitarization of the
region is possible by exercising political will and allocation of the necessary
resources to social and civil gendered needs instead of to weapons and
destruction. We advocate for and work towards a Euro-Med that utilizes all
political, nonviolent and non-militarist means, including feminist analyses of
peace and war, as a comprehensive approach to the solving of all conflicts.
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IFE-EFI demands and acts to achieve a joint
Euro-Mediterranean policy that: ·
Rejects occupation, war and military interventions as a
solution to conflicts. ·
Recognizes the rights of peoples to self-determination. ·
Promotes a region free from nuclear weapons and enacts
the international treaties against arm trade. ·
Recognizes the structural violence against women as a
societal and political problem and take responsibility for its cost for women
and for the whole society. ·
Favors the concept of global human security, that
includes and addresses the structural violence against women in everyday life
as a security concern and inseparable part of the concept of human security. ·
Adopts effective legislation and policies to address
it, based on the international women’s rights mechanisms. ·
Recognizes the system of prostitution as an extreme
form of violence against women; decriminalizes women in prostitution and
criminalizes the clients. |
The wars and deteriorated economic and social situations have pressured
people to run from the consequential misery and violence. The impediment of the
free movement of persons, penalizes, excludes and forces many immigrants to go
underground. This is contrary to our conception of democracy and to a region in
which we wish to live together. Migrant women, who actively participate in the
production of wealth, are exposed to social exclusion, violence and poverty.
They face double discrimination on the labor market because of the opposition
created intentionally between them and their country of origin. All women
living in the same country must enjoy the same rights: right to work, to
education and vocational training, right to social welfare and health
protection.
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IFE-EFI calls upon the governments in the
Euro-Med region to take measures to guarantee: ·
The right to free movement of all persons. ·
The right to full citizenship of both women and men. ·
Women who are victims of gender-based violence are
entitled to political asylum. |
Women’s freedom over their own bodies has not been gained in all parts of
the Euro-Med region and where it has, it is regularly jeopardized under the
pressure of conservative and religious trends. The sexual and reproductive
rights of women are seriously endangered.
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IFE-EFI advocates for the right of women to
full control over their own bodies and for full exercise of their sexual and
reproductive rights. |
Religions and religious discourses support the patriarchal system. Mounting
communitarianism and religious fundamentalisms intensify the violations of
women’s rights. Any violence or violation of women’s physical integrity or
human dignity cannot be justified by religion, customs, culture or traditions.
Only separation between religion and legislation, and separation between
religion and political and public spheres guarantee the respect of all beliefs
and our diversity. The separation prevents all forms of discrimination based on
religion. Secularism and women’s rights are tightly related. Separating
politics from religion is a precondition to achieving equality and respect of
diversities for any Civil State.
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Religion should be a private matter and the
freedom of belief should be guaranteed to all. IFE-EFI calls for: ·
Application of the principle of separation of religion
from the legislative, political and public spheres. ·
Application of the principle of non-discrimination
based on gender and the principle of equality between women and men as a
guiding principle for all constitutions. ·
Incorporation in all constitutions of clear provisions
guarantying equal citizenship rights between women and men. |
Changing attitudes and discriminatory patterns requires not only political
will and legal intervention but also a broad awareness-raising action campaign
addressing cultural gender stereotypes. The educational system and curricula
are framed by patriarchal values and gender bias and contribute to reproducing
these stereotypes.
In order to address cultural gender stereotypes Governments should give
priority to providing training programs on gender equality and women’s rights
for professionals (education, police, security, health, and judiciary). Women’s
rights NGOs should be consulted in tailoring these programs.
Coordinated efforts should be made to reform the educational systems, the
curricula and the educational programs in order to promote the values of
citizenship, human rights and gender equality, to address violence and
discrimination, and to promote women’s rights as a human rights issue.
Mechanisms should be developed in the private and public sectors to allow women
and men equal participation and role in economic and social life.
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IFE-EFI calls upon the Governments and
social movements of Euro-Med region: ·
To exercise all efforts and take actions to change the
prevailing culture that undermines women’s rights and equality between women
and men. ·
For a zero tolerance policy to all forms of
discrimination and violence perpetrated against women in the name of culture
and tradition. |
In the present context it is more than ever important to apply
international conventions and both regional and national women’s rights
mechanisms as parts of one framework. The Beijing Platform for Action, the
Convention of Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women (CEDAW) and
the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 with its subsequent
resolutions should all be enshrined in the European Neighborhood Policy in
order to enable the respect of human rights of women and men in bilateral and
multilateral agreements.
This requires addressing the long term demand of civil society to lift all
reservations on CEDAW and the ratification of the optional protocol,
harmonizing national legislation with international laws and standards for
women’s rights, and developing National Action Plans for implementation of the
UNSCR1325 and UfM Ministerial Conclusions on women’s rights.
These actions will provide channels for dialogue between State actors and
women’s rights organizations and will serve as monitoring mechanisms. This
means also allocating budgets for their development and implementation.
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IFE-EFI calls upon the EU: ·
To demand the implementation of gender equality and
women’s rights as a condition in every bilateral and multilateral agreement
and in the European Neighborhood Policy. ·
To base partnerships on the full respect of human
rights of both women and men and to develop strict and reliable tools to
assess their implementation. |
The Euro-Mediterranean feminist movement represents a decisive social
force. Working with the women of the world and all progressive forces, Euromed
Feminist Initiative contributes to exposing and dismantling down–top the model
of patriarchal dominance power in Euro-Med and globally.