The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the EU priorities for the 68th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
The resolution stated that the EU needs to acknowledge its responsibility to include gender perspectives in all areas of its external policies, such as development cooperation, humanitarian aid, trade, agriculture, climate and migration, in order to have an impact on the eradication of global female poverty.
Progress made in recent years in the EU in empowering women and fostering an equal society, with initiatives such as transparent recruitment procedures in companies or pay transparency, must be enhanced as they are essential to achieve gender equality, which is particularly important during times of crisis.
Among the main recommendations addressed to the Council, Parliament highlighted the need to:
- ensure the full involvement of Parliament and its Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the decision-making process on the EU’s position at the 68th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, to ensure that Parliament has adequate and timely information and access to the EU position document ahead of the negotiations;
- call on all UN member states, together with the EU, to ensure adequate funding for UN Women;
- ensure that the EU leads by example and shows strong leadership, while taking a unified position on the importance of empowering women and girls in all their diversity and achieving gender equality worldwide;
- ensure equal opportunities in education, in the labour market, as well as in political and economic decision-making, with equal access to economic and financial services;
- address the multiple systemic root causes of women’s poverty globally, such as women’s over-representation in low-paid, precarious and part-time jobs, women’s career breaks to care for children and other family members, lack of access to labour markets and employment, the gender pay and pension gap, as well as under-representation of women in political and economic decision-making;
- tackle and combat harmful traditional practices such as child and forced marriages and female genital mutilation;
- ensure measures to prevent girls from missing school during their periods by improving water sanitation, hygiene services and menstrual hygiene facilities on school premises and by tackling period poverty;
- ensure that concrete actions and adequate budget commitments are included in future EU strategies, programmes and policy initiatives to address the various aspects and causes of women’s poverty as flagged within the EU Gender Equality Strategy;
- recognise that energy poverty affects women disproportionately and put forward specific measures to support those in vulnerable situations;
- ensure access to SRHR, including age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality and relationship education for all, affordable modern contraception, safe and legal abortion care and other SRHR services as quality maternal health services;
- strengthen and support civil society organisations and NGOs that are supporting women’s rights and their empowerment;
- commit to advancing towards a feminist foreign, security and development policy that entails a gender-transformative vision and to make gender equality a core part of their external actions and priorities;
- take into account the need to strengthen gender mainstreaming and to utilise the principles of gender budgeting more effectively, also in EU external policies, to address gender inequality worldwide;
- fully implement the EU Gender Action Plan III and ensure that 85 % of all new actions throughout external relations by 2025 will contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment.