EWL News

News typewritter Latest news from the European Women’s Lobby in Brussels

EWL News
EWL calls for a gender perspective in the EU Directive for minimum standards for victims

Posted on 16 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 16 March 2012] In May 2011, the European Commission presented a package of measures to ensure rights, support and protection for victims across the EU, including a Directive on minimum standards for victims. While the Directive is discussed in the European Parliament, the EWL stresses women should be its major target group and violence against women its key element.
The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) welcomed the much needed focus on victims in the Directive: this legally-binding (...) Read more
EWL News
EWL’s key recommendations backed up by the European Parliament

Posted on 16 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 16 March 2012] European Parliament backs many key recommendations of the EWL in two resolutions on women’s rights and gender equality adopted on 13 March. The EWL welcomes the strong commitment of the MEPs for real equality between women and men. Member States and European Commission must realise that the time for good will and declarations is over: It is time for action!
Equality between women and men in the European Union - 2011
Parliament’s annual report on the state of gender (...) Read more
EWL News
Sweden: EWL members campaign against surrogate motherhood

Posted on 16 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 16 March 2012] The Swedish Women’s Lobby has launched a campaing against surrogacy, the arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers a child for another couple or person, and calls on women’s organisations across Europe to recognise surrogate motherhood as a problem and defend women’s full right to their own bodies.
Surrogacy is a global industry in which people in the West exploit women in poorer parts of the world. Regardless of where it takes place, the surrogate mothers (...) Read more
EWL News
Sweden: Women work unpaid after 15:51 - Campaign on gender pay gap

Posted on 16 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 16 March 2012] For the International Women’s Day 2012, the Swedish Women’s Lobby initiated an extensive campaign to raise awareness on the pay gap between women and men. The campaign, supported by a broad coalition of workers unions, political parties and women’s rights organizations, received great media attention and created a public debate on the gender pay gap in Sweden.
The historical uniqueness of this project is due to the wide range of partners, and the fact that they all (...) Read more
EWL News
EWL 10 Days of Action: Conclusions... but not the end of action!

Posted on 9 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 09 March 2012] The time has come to conclude the EWL 10 Days of Action for HER Future, which we launched last week to celebrate the International Women’s Day 2012. These days have been very busy for us, but also extremely rewarding. In particular, we have enjoyed seeing so many of you in our events and activities!
The EWL 10 Days of Action were launched on 29 February with a video greeting and EWL’s new facts and figures on women in the EU. On the same day, we launched our latest (...) Read more
EWL News
Better late than never

EU moves closer to quotas for women on company boards

Posted on 9 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 05 March 2012] The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) welcomes the announcement by European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding that legal targets to increase the proportion of women on corporate boards all over Europe are on the horizon.
The EWL has been advocating for an EU Directive on parity in boardrooms, and sees the efforts by the European Commission to push for more equality in the sphere of economic decision-making as an important symbolic move.
The EWL is, therefore, (...) Read more
EWL News
The proposed reforms in social protection are going to deepen the gender gap in old age income, say AGE and EWL

International Women’s Day

Posted on 9 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 07 March 2012] On the eve of International Women’s Day and on the occasion of the EP Interparliamentary Committee meeting on 08 March on ‘Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value’, AGE Platform Europe and the European Women’s Lobby join forces to call for strong measures to meet the needs of older women in light of current reforms in social protection systems particularly with regards to pensions. “Calling for equal pay for work of equal value is important but not enough to ensure that (...) Read more
EWL News
EWL and its Belgian members celebrate International Women’s Day on the Bridge!

Posted on 9 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 09 March 2012] EWL secretariat and EWL members in Belgium took part in the demonstration ’Women on the bridge’ in Brussels to celebrate the International Women’s Day. On 08 March, at lunch time, almost 200 women, activists or members of various women’s organisations, gathered on the Sainctelette Bridge to share their voices and recall that women’s rights need to be promoted again and again. ’As long as there is no equality between women and men, there will be an International Women’s (...) Read more
EWL News
What role for equality in the future EU long-term budget?

Posted on 8 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 07 March 2012] EWL and the other main European equality networks laid out their vision on the future EU funding for equality and non-discrimination in a European Parliament hearing on the ‘Rights and Citizenship Programme,’ the EU’s main funding channel for gender equality, equality and non-discrimination for the years to come.
The hearing, hosted by all five European Parliament intergroups working on equality (Disability, LGBT, Anti-Racism and Discrimination, Ageing and (...) Read more
EWL News
Launch of the EWL photo exhibition in Brussels

Posted on 7 March 2012 |

[Brussels, 08 March 2012] On the International Women’s Day, the EWL celebrated the opening reception of its photo exhibition ’My World: Visions of Feminism in the 21st Century’ in the Hôtel communal d’Etterbeek in Brussels. The exhibition brings together the best works of young female photographers from across Europe who participated in the EWL photo competition ’Feminism in the 21st Century, which was launched two years ago.
The 20 artists whose photograps are exhibited, study the meaning of (...) Read more