Brussels 09/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - The French minister for women's rights, Najet Valaud-Belkacem, who will host a Euro-Mediterranean conference on women on 11 and 12 September, has expressed her hopes that the event will “lead to the adoption of a text in which the 43 states of the Union for the Mediterranean agree on their fundamental values and their objectives in terms of women's rights and gender equality” (our translation throughout). In an interview published by the Journal du dimanche newspaper of Sunday 7 September, she added that she hoped for agreement “on the adoption of several dozen concrete projects under the 'UfM' label, involving civil society, such as creating specialist training for midwives between various states and with the support of a number of NGOs”.
The question of funding does not arise, she added, “because there is existing European money”, including funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB). “We will ensure that the European states make a contribution. Fund-raising will be organised in March of next year, with private business people, sponsors, to conclude the financial round table”.
Valaud-Belkacem stressed that the UfM is “no longer an empty shell”. “We have to remember how theUfM came into being in order to understand why it has remained on ice for the last two and half years”. She added that, “behind a beautiful idea, that of promoting euro-Mediterranean exchange, there has been fairly clumsy implementation”. She sees the UfM as having a clear advantage: the forum is “one of the very few fora in which the Arab countries and Israel” come together.
She sees women's rights as a priority issue. Egypt “has experienced an increase in sexual violence”, she pointed out. In Tunisia, “we have seen more steps backwards and more regression than progress. There is therefore a great deal of food for thought to lead us to conclude that the position of women is a major issue for the post-Arab Spring countries”. (FB/transl.fl)