Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-12-Speech-1-136"
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"en.20070212.15.1-136"2
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"Mr President, first, I would like to congratulate Parliament and you, Mrs Bozkurt, on the report. It is an accurate and carefully balanced description of the situation as regards women’s rights in Turkey and it is also a valuable contribution to the debate on women’s role in the social, political and economic life of the country.
The Commission will continue to promote actively non-discrimination against women in all areas of life. This will include future projects. We will also continue to encourage civil society initiatives aimed at increasing public awareness, such as the ‘Stop the Violence Against Women’ campaign.
There has indeed been progress in the area of women’s rights: legislation has been passed; an Advisory Board on the Status of Women has been established; an official circular has been issued by the Prime Minister, instructing the administration to deal with domestic violence; a joint EU–Turkey project is setting up a database on violence against women; and the ‘Let’s go to school, girls’ campaign has resulted in the enrolment of 177 000 girls in school. All this is positive and is acknowledged in the report.
However, we also very much share your concerns as regards women’s rights in Turkey. Women’s participation in the labour market, political representation of women, education for girls and violence against women are areas of main concern and we concur with the thrust of the analysis and recommendations of the report.
Low levels of participation by women and low employment rates, together with the large size of the informal economy, represent a major employment policy challenge.
We also agree that political participation by women in Turkey is dramatically low and that important efforts have to be made to deal with this issue. In addition, we cannot agree more with the importance education has for the economic independence of women.
You will know that gender equality is a major theme in the context of the political criteria. That is why the Commission follows all these issues closely as part of its regular monitoring. We also cover them in the context of the negotiations.
We report regularly on the situation in the annual progress reports. Inadequacies are also raised in our bilateral monitoring meetings with the Turkish authorities.
In the framework of our pre-accession assistance, the Commission also funds a number of projects aimed at promoting women’s rights. Particular emphasis is given to violence against women. In 2007 we will support the establishment of eight shelters for women who have been subject to domestic violence.
Gender equality is also given a high priority within the civil society dialogue between the EU and Turkey. This dialogue aims at improving mutual knowledge and understanding. Several projects have already been funded, including some involving women’s NGOs."@en1
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