A delegation from the European Parliament’s Committee on Gender Equality (FEMM) visited Warsaw from Wednesday 2 to Friday 4 November to take stock of the situation regarding women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health rights in Poland.
“We have received very worrying messages at our meetings: civil society and the opposition are deeply concerned about the current situation in Poland where women’s health and lives are endangered”, warned Predrag Fred Matić (S&D, Croatian).
In particular, he denounced Polish laws on sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), such as the restriction of access to abortion or sex education. “While the government denies any such issues and points out the legality of the SRHR practices in the country, we repeated what has been said in numerous European Parliament resolutions on Poland: the Parliament condemns all regressive legislation that leads to limited access to healthcare”, he said.
MEPs also discussed the situation of refugee women and girls from Ukraine with Bogusław Świeży, Deputy Mayor of the Ukrainian border town of Przemyśl, members of the Plicz-o-plicz (hand in hand) refugee assistance centre and Ukrainian refugee support organisations. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)