In a joint vote on Wednesday 24 January, the European Parliament's international trade and women's rights committees adopted (by 45 votes in favour to 4 against with 5 abstentions) a draft resolution prepared by two MEPs from the GUE/NGL Group, Malin Björk (Sweden) and Eleonora Forenza (Italy), aiming to include arrangements in EU trade agreements that can strengthen gender equality and promote women's rights.
An assessment of the EU's current trade agreements shows that only one agreement in five mentions women's rights and two in five contain references aiming to promote gender equality, the draft resolution states.
The MEPs therefore ask the Commission to promote and support the inclusion of a chapter on gender in all future EU trade agreements, and arrangements aiming to ensure the respect of human rights including gender equality.
Inequality between men and women is especially characterised by the fact that women are more likely than men to work in low-paid or low-status jobs, which sometimes leads to discrimination, gender gaps in wages and worse working conditions, the draft resolution states.
The MEPs also call for the empowerment of women in EU trade agreements based on international standards such as the UN’s Beijing Platform for Action, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Furthermore, they call for specific measures to combat exploitation and improve working and living conditions for women in export-oriented industries (such as garment and textile manufacturing and the agriculture sector), and to avoid trade liberalisation contributing to precarious labour rights and increased gender wage gaps.
In addition, the MEPs want services of public and general economic interest, such social security, education, public transport and healthcare, to be exempted from the scope of trade negotiations and to fall under the competence of governments.
"So far, international trade has not been paying attention to gender equality and women’s rights. That needs to change. It is not enough to say that you want to include a gender perspective. You have to have a concrete plan for it as well", Björk states.
"Human rights are not a non-tariff barrier and they can’t be ignored in the name of profit. In today’s report, we try to set a gender-sensitive oriented perspective in a trade policy for the EU that has been mostly gender blind", Forenza says.
The whole European Parliament will look at their draft resolution at its plenary session in Strasbourg in March. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)