Brussels, 08/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - By tradition, Italian women give other women flowers on 8 March. In Strasbourg, France, the president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, pointed out on Monday 8 March what the aims of International Women's Day are (the United Nations made the day official in 1977, but it was actually set up in Copenhagen back in 1920 at an international Socialist women's conference that decided that the day should be used to mobilise for the fight for women's suffrage). The EP president said he wanted the EU to be in the lead of the fight against violence against women and that women's inequality should be fought against as a matter of course.
During a brief debate, the chair of the S&D Group, Germany's Martin Schulz, said that a society where men and women are not equal can never be democratic, slamming the "shame" of economic discrimination between men and women. Another element of shame that the EU should fight against is the white slave trade (the trafficking of sex slaves), said British Liberal Diana Wallis. Speaking on behalf of the European Commission, John Dalli said that the Women's Rights Charter would be supplemented by a five-year strategy to introduce genuine equality. (L.G./transl.fl)