A distant equality

“Europe cannot play and win with half the team confined to the bench”, said Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, summing up the condition of women in the old continent. Despite the fact that art.14 and Protocol n°.12 of the European Convention on Human Rights have in recent decades helped to improve their legal protection and status, women continue to perform marginal roles in public and political life and receive a lower salary than their male counterparts for holding the same jobs. Women, in short, continue to live in glass cages at the start of the third millennium. The report. Davis, deploring the fact that gender inequality is detrimental to political, social and economic development, referred to the COE report “Sex-disaggregated statistics on the participation of women and men in political and public decision making in the Council of Europe member states”, published on the eve of 8 March, International Women’s Day. According to this survey, within the countries analyzed (42 out of 47), the average of women ministers is 28.6% (compared with 19.9% in 2005), while female representation in national parliaments is now 21.7%, a percentage that remains unchanged over 2005 and far from the minimum threshold of 40% fixed in 2003 by a Recommendation of the COE Committee of Ministers, containing some guidelines to help COE member states to promote the greater participation of women in decision-making processes.Conclusions “not encouraging”. The report contains the data, and gender breakdown, of MPs, national, regional and local governments, supreme and constitutional courts, diplomatic services, and COE organs, updated to 1st September 2008. Its conclusions are called “not encouraging” by Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Deputy Secretary General, according to whom “equality between women and men” is not “a privilege or favour granted to women”, but “an essential criterion of democracy closely linked to respect for human rights”. De Boer-Buquicchio draws up a rapid checklist: “Only three States have exceeded the threshold of 40% of female presences in national parliaments: namely, Sweden (46%), Finland (41.5%) and Holland (41.3%). Denmark (38%) and Norway (37.9%) are close to reaching it”. At the opposite end of the scale, women MPs in Ukraine and Armenia only amount to 8.4%, and those in Georgia even less, 5.1%. In Spain and in Finland the participation of women in national governments now surpasses that of men, respectively 52.9% and 60%. Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Monaco and Montenegro score zero on this front, with no women ministers at all. Europe can boast of two women heads of government (Germany and Ukraine), while two women have in the past been elected Heads of State, respectively in Finland and Ireland. Real day-to-day signs of progress. “Gender discrimination – comments Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, and Chairman-in-Office of the Committee of Ministers – is a serious violation of human rights. We must strive to ensure that every day of this Spanish chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers may become an ‘International Women’s Day’, by pushing for real progress on gender issues on a daily basis”. “The status of women, de facto equality, empowerment, sexual violence, women and disability: these – says Moratinos – are some of the aspects on which activities have been or are being organized by the Council of Europe, in order to improve the legal framework for gender equality and to ensure its implementation”. Initiatives. Meanwhile, after the landmark event on the equal participation of women and men in political life promoted by the Spanish Ministry for Equal Opportunities and Spain’s permanent Representation at the UNO in New York on 3 March, during the 53rd session of the UNO Commission on the condition of women, the COE is planning a high level Conference on “Public budgets: essential elements of genuine equality”, to be held in Athens on 5-6 May. During this meeting, says a press release, “the participants will have the opportunity to discuss and develop innovative approaches aimed at reducing socio-economic disparities between women and men by reforming public receipts and expenditures in relation to the needs of European citizens”. The aim is to help “integrate in real terms the gender perspective in the drawing up budgets”. Meanwhile, entries for the “Prize for Equality between Men and Women” should be presented by 1st June 2009. Established by the COE in October 2008, “the award – explains Lluís Maria de Puig, President of the Parliamentary Assembly – is for activities, programmes or initiatives already realized or in process of implementation by political parties with the aim of improving in a significant way the participation of women in elected assemblies, political parties themselves and their executive organs”.