Brussels, 09/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 8 March, International Women's Day (see other article and EUROPE 9147), French Green Hélène Flautre, Chair of the Human Rights Sub-committee at the European Parliament, pointed out in a press release that violence against women often went unpunished. The MEP warned that “these criticisms are not only addressed to third countries”. She also drew on a report by Amnesty International, which showed that in France “prison sentences and fines are rarely used in cases of violence between couples”. Flautre announced that on 19 April her sub-committee would be analysing the phenomenon of women being killed in Central America and the impunity of those who commit these crimes against women. On 10 July she will be speaking on protecting women during armed conflicts and their role in consolidating peace.
A polemic also arose in Parliament between MEPs for and against abortion. In a press statement French Socialists (Bernadette Vergnaud and Marie-Line Renaud) criticised two MEPs Ari Vatanen (EPP-ED, Finland) and Konrad Szymanski (UEN, Poland) for having invited anti-abortion activists from the EU to the Parliament “under the pretext of organising a seminar on reproductive health”. Ms Vergnaud was angry that: “This forgets the fight by women…which still continues, as it does in Portugal, and which denies the difficult parliamentary work by Simone Veil thirty years ago in France and which the majority of the French political class salutes today”. Belgian Socialist Anne Van Lancker deplored the high number of abortions among young girls, noting, “Contraceptives are not used widely enough because they cost so much” added to which was the lack of “proper sex education”.
Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe announced that in order to fill in the gaps at national and European levels in preventing violence against women, the pan-European organisation had created a task force of eight experts, which would propose concrete measures to prevent and fight violence against women, particularly domestic violence and which would also contribute to a broad public awareness campaign by the Council of Europe this year.
The president of the Women's Network at EUROCHAMBRES, Isabella Moore, welcomed the plan to set up a European Gender Institute and hopes that the March European Council will ratify the proposal by the six Heads of government to conclude a European Pact for Gender Equality.