Recommendation to the Council on the EU priorities for the 62nd session of the UN Commission on the status of women

The European Parliament adopted by 417 votes to 48, with 72 abstentions, a resolution on a recommendation to the Council on the EU priorities for the 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

The 62nd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women will focus in particular on the issues that need to be addressed in order to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in rural areas and on the participation in and access of women to media and information and communications technologies.

The recommendations addressed to the Council focus on three axes:

1) General conditions for empowering women and girls: the Union and its Member States must be at the forefront of the empowerment of women and girls, and promote the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) in the context of all their external relations. This goal is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls around the world.

Parliament recommended, inter alia:

• to put an end to all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere and to combat all forms of violence;
• to fight gender stereotypes and invest in women’s and girls’ access to tailor-made education, lifelong learning and vocational training, especially in rural areas particularly in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) sector as well as entrepreneurship and innovation;
• to develop policies aimed at eradicating poverty and eliminate the gender pay gap;
• to call on the Member States to provide affordable, high-quality facilities and public and private services for everyday life, especially in rural areas and with particular regard for health, education and care;
• to ensure gender mainstreaming into all policies and programmes by means of adequate financial and human resources.

2) The empowerment of rural women: rural women are often the primary care providers in their families and communities. However, they encounter numerous difficulties in accessing childcare and elderly care for their families, which results in a disproportionate burden borne by women and hinders their integration into the labour market.

Moreover, rural women have limited mobility and a lack of access to transport or means of contacting transport. Access to sexual and reproductive health rights and education is more limited in rural areas.

Members recommended:

• supporting mothers who are entrepreneurs in rural areas as they face specific challenges;
• ensuring that rural women and girls have accessible, affordable and high-quality formal and informal education;
• providing good quality public services to enable women to reconcile work and private life;
• developing comprehensive health services that address the physical, mental and emotional well-being of rural women (including gender-based violence);
• recognising that women in rural areas work in a variety of fields and are often agents of change towards sustainable and ecologically sound agriculture, food security and the creation of green jobs;
• implementing climate-resilient agricultural policies which take due account of the specific threats faced by rural women as a result of natural or man-made disasters;
• facilitating digital development, as it can significantly contribute to creating new jobs;
• developing employment policies, services and programmes to address the precarious situation of rural women;
• guaranteeing rural women's property rights, particularly with respect to agricultural holdings and land inheritance, as well as rural women's access to productive resources, online platforms, markets, instruments marketing and financial services.

3) Participation in and access of women to the media, and information and communications technologies: given the crucial role played by the media, Parliament made recommendations to ensure that women, who represent at least 50% of society, participate fairly in the creation of media content and decision-making in the media organisations.

Members recommended tackling the gender pay gap in the media sector through anti-discrimination measures, ensuring equal pay for equal work between women and men and called for all the necessary measures to be taken against acts of violence against investigative journalists, devoting particular attention paid to female journalists, who are often more vulnerable.