Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-27-Speech-3-285"
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"en.20060927.23.3-285"2
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".
Madam President, I can do no other than endorse the point of order, for there are considerable differences between one translation and another.
If this House adopts the resolution on women in international trade, it would be a great triumph and an important step on the road to gender justice. We will have to bring pressure to bear on the Commission to get it to do as Parliament demands. I wish to thank all Members for their positive attitude towards this report, their support for it and their suggestions, and I hope that we may be able to achieve a satisfactory outcome when we vote on it tomorrow.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although I would have liked the Commissioner with responsibility for trade policy to be here to listen to this evening’s debate, for the subject is very much one of his own, I do hope that this will not be the last time that it is debated in this House.
Globalisation and the liberalisation of world trade are not gender-neutral, and so I am glad to be able to present this own-initiative report on ‘perspectives of women in international trade’ on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.
The relationship between gender and trade is a new subject not only for women, but also for governments and those who make trade policy, and also for us in this House, so it is high time that we address it and debate the question of what influence global trade has on equal opportunities policy and vice versa. In the report, you will find many suggestions for practical things to do about the gender blindness of international trade, and I would like to emphasise the fact that the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality adopted it unanimously. It highlights the need for coherence between the objective of European equality policy and the goals of trade, development policy and aid programmes if equal opportunities for women and men are to be promoted.
Of all the poor in the world, 70% are women; their gender means that they do not have the same opportunity to acquire property, land or education, and they suffer many kinds of discrimination on the labour market, and their situation can only be made worse by market liberalisation and the extension of international trading relations that take insufficient account of the structural discrimination against women. To well-educated women, globalisation has brought new vocational opportunities, but liberalised markets have made poorer women’s living conditions even worse. Microcredit and development aid will amount to no more than a drop in the ocean if we do not make a start on making fundamental changes to these global economic structures. Trade policy involves the EU in representing the interests of the Member States at many levels and in negotiating treaties, for example as part of the WTO negotiations. Although it, in the past, set milestones for equality of opportunity in Europe, there is a yawning gulf when it comes to realising this principle in global trade policy.
The Committee on Women’s Rights is unwilling to tolerate this silence any longer. As a first step, we demand gender mainstreaming in international trade policy, with explicit monitoring and assessment mechanisms, the latter of which might, for example, involve ranking the Member States in terms of their promotion of gender equity on the labour market.
In order that the objective of equality should not be voided of all meaning, a department for gender equity and trade should be set up within the Commission, with one of its functions to be the provision of gender-disaggregated statistical data. We call on the Commission to present an annual progress report on equality in international trade, and also to set up a fund to help women get access to loans and education. Politicians without money are no more than poets, so, as a responsible trade policy can be brought about only by transparent flows of funds, we demand the introduction of gender budgeting, that being a budget policy that takes gender justice seriously, something we regard as indispensable at every level of trade policy. The Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality intends to organise a hearing on the subject next week.
The intention is that the EU should become a beacon of equality in international trade policy, just as it has already become for equal opportunities for women in Europe, and that the Commission should play an active part in countering discrimination against women, which will involve ensuring that European companies with overseas production centres and also benefiting from EU market access programmes do not have a hand in the inhumane exploitation of women. It is also important that the EU, before entering into trade agreements, should undertake a gender-specific analysis of the position of women. We in the EU must not promote businesses that use women while committing flagrant breaches of their rights.
We know that international trading organisations, businesses and structures are dominated by men. If women are to achieve equality with men in terms of their access to power and occupying of decision-making positions, then quotas are still indispensable; effective quotas that represent more than lip-service will help to establish gender parity in international trade relations, and so I am glad that the Committee on Women’s Rights has drawn on an initiative taken in Norway, where companies quoted on the stock exchange have been required, with effect from 2006, to increase to 40% the percentage of women on supervisory boards."@en1
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