Karamanou (PSE).
– (EL) Mr President, we are debating two very important reports on
women's rights today. A few days ago, someone asked me if I really believed
that women's rights are violated in Europe. Naturally I did not need to think
long or hard before replying that, compared with other parts of the world,
Europe is a paradise for women's rights. Without doubt it has made a great deal
of progress over recent years, as we can see from the European Commission's
annual reports. However, serious problems persist even in democratic Europe,
such as violence against women in its various manifestations, domestic
violence, sexual violence, violence in the workplace. And it is to the Spanish
Presidency's credit, I say it again, that it has put these issues at the top of
its agenda.
The fact that some 500 000 women are
bought and sold in the European Union every year is a blatant violation of
fundamental rights; the European Union has still not woken up to this and, more
to the point, it has still not taken specific measures to combat this
phenomenon. The fact that 3 000 women in the United Kingdom alone are sexually
mutilated every year, in the name of cultural traditions which immigrants from
fundamentalist and anti-democratic regimes bring with them together with their
baggage is also a violation of basic rights, as was the recent crime of honour
in Sweden.
The fact is, the European job market is
still fragmented along gender lines, women's salaries are much lower than
men's, only 25% of businesses belong to women and women are kept below the
glass ceiling and out of responsible managerial and decision-making positions;
all examples of violations and discrimination against women. Furthermore, the
standard which is the idea at the core of the guidelines for the European
strategy on employment should also be the objective for women's employment, as
should stepping up measures to reconcile working and family life and
individualising rights, as Mrs Fraisse quite rightly points out.