Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-21-Speech-2-264"
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"en.20031021.8.2-264"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate Mrs Smet on this courageous own-initiative report. Not everyone in the various states is giving your report a joyful welcome. It may escape many of us that, in the context of international relations, and particularly where development cooperation is concerned, it was not so long ago that discussion of human rights was absolutely taboo. In the past, we were apparently always so kind to each other that, during negotiations, people did not even say what they really thought of situations in certain countries.
What we now have before us is therefore very much a radical departure from this. I hope that in future, we will have a women’s rights paragraph when negotiations are started in certain countries. We often hear that human rights are women’s rights. It should be self-evident that women’s rights are a vital component in development cooperation. In every culture across the world, women play a specific and decisive role in social, economic and cultural development and in social progress. In my experience, it is in the fight against human trafficking, and particularly the fight on behalf of the victims, that this need for a strong women’s policy becomes evident.
Why is this report important, and why should it not become a document that pays mere lip service? I would immediately remind you of the situation of women in various future Member States where women are still being traded like pieces of furniture. Looking a little further, we see the Balkans, where, in certain parts of Albania, the Kanoun, the people’s legislation, continues to be in use to this day. That text, the Kanoun, the code of laws of Lek Dukagjin, states that a woman is nothing more than a sack that is made to last for a certain amount of time, comparable to a product with a sell-by-date. And that in the context of women’s rights in 2003! Another example is the person in charge in Ghana, who told me that women yield more than tomatoes. Why should we not trade in them in that case? It may be a good idea simply to send this report to a host of embassies, consulates, and people active in international affairs, so that people become aware of what it contains and will consider the fact that a women’s rights paragraph is a human rights paragraph, and is of vital importance."@en1
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