Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-14-Speech-3-279"
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"en.20030514.12.3-279"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since I was the draftsman of the opinion of the committee on women’s rights and equal opportunities on this report, I should like first of all to offer my sincere thanks to Mr van den Berg for his excellent work and of course for having adopted portions of our committee’s recommendations. So what is the situation? We have a good report, we have a good rapporteur, we have a highly-motivated Commissioner here among us, and many committed people in the field, overseas aid workers, and educationalists. Yet there are a number of infuriating aspects, because everything takes so long. The clock is ticking and yet I see so many organisations in the field that have to beg in order to be able to build schools and pay teachers. We have a long road ahead of us.
The right to education and access to education are often empty words in developing countries. That is right: there are still 113 million children who do not attend school and most of them are girls, as Mr van den Berg has already said. They have to help with the housework, they have to contribute to the daily provision of food for the whole family, they have to look after the infants, they have to sell any leftovers at market and they have to fetch drinking water. That means that they have no time to devote to themselves. I can therefore wholeheartedly endorse the conclusions of this report, namely that education is the key to combating poverty.
Only through education can a country develop, only through an adequately educated population can a country progress. Give a girl or a woman education and you are educating the whole family. We also all know that equal opportunities for women are not only achieved by changing legislation and social conditions. No! It happens through education. Participation of women in all sectors of society and the achievement of general social, cultural and economic progress begin with reasonable qualitative and quantitative education. We have already seen this in Europe. Only when women were given reasonable schooling and access to education did emancipation take off in all sectors of society, including politics. But it is a long road.
As the rapporteur rightly says in the notes to his report, educated women have more opportunities for improving the economic situation of themselves and their family, and even down to their choice of husband. The individual personal development of women also offers more protection against exploitation in all its forms, including prostitution, forced or otherwise, and human trafficking, particularly trafficking in women and children.
I have, despite this, three further observations. The time frame indicated in this report is in my view somewhat unclear. The financial consequences are not properly set out. And I therefore hope that the Commission, jointly with the Member States, will set to work in a coordinated way to achieve the objectives contained in the statement of the Commission.
Secondly the problem of AIDS, and finally, in conclusion, education, which as Commissioner Nielson said at the outset, must be adapted to the local culture."@en1
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