European Parliament – 11 May 2017
Presentation Gea Meijers EP INTA + FEMM Hearing
I would like to thank the INTA and FEMM Committee on Women’s Rights & Gender Equality, for organizing this important hearing and for inviting our WIDE + network to speak. This joint initiative by the FEMM and INTA committee is an excellent opportunity to make EU trade policy gender-sensitive; we very much welcome this initiative.
I am speaking here on behalf of the WIDE+ gender and trade working group that brings together experts and CSO representatives to monitor EU trade policy. WIDE+ is a European network based in 10 EU member states. WIDE+ members are gender and development NGOs and networks, as well as women’s rights experts and activists. As part of our work to provide feminist economic literacy we have been analysing EU trade and development policies for close to twenty years. We will be publishing our recommendations to make EU trade policy gender sensitive soon.
Our experience in monitoring EU trade policy confirms the observation that EU trade policy is gender blind. Not only is EU trade policy gender-blind; it also follows what we perceive as a neoliberal ideology that promotes reducing transnational tariffs, combined with global deregulation of investment and services, strengthening investors' rights and, in some instances, protectionist policies for European producers, in particular agriculture and through promoting intellectual property rights.
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/Welcomepage.aspx
The Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council are independent human rights experts with mandates to report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective. The system of Special Procedures is a central element of the United Nations human rights machinery and covers all human rights: civil, cultural, economic, political, and social. As of 24 March 2017, there are 43 thematic and 13 country mandates.
http://spinternet.ohchr.org/_Layouts/SpecialProceduresInternet/ViewAllCountryMandates.aspx?Type=TM
http://spinternet.ohchr.org/_Layouts/SpecialProceduresInternet/ViewAllCountryMandates.aspx
UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women – Website:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/SRWomenIndex.aspx
FULL 21-PAGE REPORT OF THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL 2017, IS ATTACHED.
Save the Children - Direct Link to Full 23-Page 2017 Report:
Website Offers Report in Arabic, French & Spanish
Top 10
Where childhood is least threatened
COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE WHILE PROTECTING RIGHTS: DELIVERING ON THE PARIS PROMISES - GENDER EQUALITY
Direct Link to Full 21-Page 2017 Publication:
http://careclimatechange.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Delivering-On-Paris.pdf
