EU Parliament Human Rights Report 2009 – Calls for Action on VAW
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: January 3, 2011
WUNRN
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ISSUES HUMAN
RIGHTS REPORT 2009
& CALLS FOR ACTION ON VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN
20 December 2010
[
17 December 2010] The need for a strong and effective EU human rights policy,
which ensures greater consistency among all EU external policies, is the key
message of Parliament’s first human rights report since the Lisbon Treaty
entered into force, approved on Thursday. MEPs criticize the human rights
records of, inter alia,
With the EU External Action
Service now in place, Parliament’s rapporteur Laima Liucija Andrikienė
(EPP, LT) called on the EU foreign policy High Representative/Vice-President of
the Commission Catherine Ashton to ensure that human rights and
democracy-building become “the silver thread running through all external
policy areas” and that “human rights do not disappear from the
structure”.
A special human rights
directorate should be put in place to ensure that human rights are at the heart
of the EU’s external actions, and a Special Representative for human rights
should be appointed and given a clear mandate, MEPs add.
Overview of
provisions on violence against women
The EU and its
means to induce the United Nations to adopt swiftly a resolution for a
worldwide moratorium on female genital mutilation, says Parliament’s
resolution.
MEPs strongly condemn the use of
rape as an instrument of war and the recurrent mass rapes in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. They ask for full details of the reasons for the MONUSCO UN
peacekeeping force’s inability to stop mass rapes.
Extracts of the
provisions on violence against women – NB: emphasis added
69. Notes that the programme of
the Trio Presidency of France, the Czech Republic and Sweden (July 2008 –
December 2009) gave priority to the question of violence against women and
girls, and asks for coherence on principles and policies both outside and
inside the EU, including with respect to supporting a ban on female genital
mutilation as a human rights violation; notes the recent adoption of a new set
of guidelines on the matter and expects the Commission to present the results
of its implementation to Parliament;
70. Takes account of the new
European Commission’s gender equality strategy’s referring specifically to the
issue of female genital mutilation; reiterates the need for coherence on EU
internal and external policies regarding this particular issue; urges the
European Commission and the EU Member States to address the issue of female
genital mutilation in the framework of political and policy dialogues with
partner countries and stakeholders relevant to this sensitive issue in the
national context, using a participatory approach and involving affected
communities; calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to
activate all political and institutional means in order to support initiatives
aiming at the adoption as soon as possible of a resolution by the UNGA calling
for a worldwide moratorium on female genital mutilation;
71. Considers that violence
against women is also expressed psychologically; observes that in the field of
work women remain underpaid in comparison with men and that more of them are
employed in precarious or part-time jobs; stresses therefore that the role of
the Commission and Member States in this field, both within and outside the
European Union, cannot be confined to combating violence in the narrow sense, given
the need to combat violence against women in all its forms – physical,
psychological, social and economic – and that priority should be
assigned to education free of gender bias for boys and girls from the earliest
age and to combating gender stereotypes;
72. Underlines the importance of comprehensive
implementation of the UN Security Council resolutions 1325, 1820, 888 and 1889 calling
for the participation of women in all phases and at all levels of conflict
resolution and the protection of women and girls from sexual violence and
discrimination; calls on Member States that do not yet have a National Action
Plan for the implementation of the UNSCR 1325 to adopt one as a matter of
urgency; strongly condemns rape used as an instrument of war and the recurrent
mass rapes occurring in DR Congo; requests full disclosure on the incapacity of
the MONUSCO peacekeeping force to put a stop to mass rapes; urges the EU HR/VP,
through EUSEC and EUPOL in DRC, to conduct an enquiry and report to the EP on
all Congolese and international companies or entities involved in the
extractive industries in DRC which pay armed groups and security personnel
involved in such mass rapes and other systematic crimes against civilians;
73. Calls on the HR/VP to
increase the number of staff working on gender issues in external action and
to create dedicated structures; recognises the progress made in CSDP in both
missions and staff training;
74. Expresses its deep concern
about the entrenched gender-based discrimination and domestic violence in
several countries, and points out that women living in rural areas are a
particularly vulnerable group; similarly, is greatly concerned about cases of
sexual violence and high rates of rape of women and girls in South Africa,
investigations often being inadequate and obstructed by gender bias, with
victims facing numerous obstacles in accessing healthcare and delays in the
provision of medical treatment; strongly condemns violence against women and
girls as a chronic problem in Guatemala and Mexico;
75. Is deeply concerned about the
situation of women and girls in Iran, DRC, Afghanistan; condemns brutal
violations of womens‘ rights in DRC, urges the international community to
significantly increase funds aimed at efforts to protect women from rape, and
stresses that major international attention must be given as a matter of
urgency to the situation of women and girls in the DRC; condemns the Shia
Personal Status Law adopted in March 2009, which strongly violates the rights
of Afghan women and contradicts the Afghan Constitution and international human
rights standards; welcomes amendments made to the law on ’Personal Affairs of
the Followers of Shia Jurisprudence‘ but remains deeply concerned about certain
articles of the law, which contradict the obligations of Afghanistan under the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on
the Rights of the Child; urges the Afghan authorities to take action without
delay to improve the situation of women’s rights in the country;
76. Insists that women’s rights
be explicitly addressed in all human rights dialogues, and in particular the
combating and elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against
women and girls, including, most prominently, gender-selected abortion, all
forms of harmful traditional or customary practices, for example female genital
mutilation and early or forced marriage, all forms of trafficking in human
beings, domestic violence and femicide, exploitation at work and economic
exploitation, and likewise insists that the invocation by states of any custom,
tradition, or religious consideration of any kind, in order to evade their duty
to eliminate such brutality, be rejected; emphasises that efforts to eliminate
all forms of female genital mutilation should be intensified both at the
grass-roots level and within the policy-making process, so as to highlight the
fact that such mutilation is both a gender issue and a human rights violation
relating to physical integrity; underlines the situation of immigrant young
women who, due to the principles of certain communities, religion, or family
honour, have to face mistreatment, honour killings or genital mutilation and
are being deprived of their freedom;
77. Recalls the Millennium
Development Goals, and stresses that access to education and health are basic
human rights; believes that health programmes, including sexual and
reproductive health, promotion of gender equality, empowerment of women and
rights of the child should be prominent in the EU´s development and human
rights policy, in particular where gender-based violence is pervasive
and women and children are put at risk of HIV/AIDS, or denied access to
information, prevention and/or treatment; calls on the Commission to integrate
core labour rights and the decent work agenda into its development policy, in
particular in trade-related assistance programmes;
78. Welcomes the UN Human Rights
Council resolution of 16 June 2009 on preventable maternal mortality and
morbidity and human rights, which calls for urgent action in line with the
Millennium Development Goals to prevent women from dying needlessly in
pregnancy and childbirth; notes that the resolution was supported by the EU
Member States, and calls on them effectively to promote the protection of the
human rights of women and girls, in particular their rights to life, to be
equal in dignity, to education, to be free to seek, receive and impart
information, to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress, to freedom from
discrimination, and to enjoy the highest attainable standard of
physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive health;
79. Calls on the Council, the
Commission and the
Member States of the African Union Protocol on the Rights of Women in
Background
Parliament’s report is a response
to the EU Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World presented by the
High Representative Catherine Ashton at the June plenary session in
It covers the period between July 2008 and December 2009. From 2010 onwards,
the report will cover the previous calendar year.
For the first time, Parliament’s
report includes also two annexes with a list of individual cases raised as well
as the resolutions adopted by the European Parliament during the reporting
period.
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