RIGHTS-EU: New Member States Slammed over Gender Policies

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Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, May 4 2005 (IPS) - Gender equality is cause for concern in many Central and Eastern European countries a year after their accession to the European Union, a report says.

The report ‘Equal opportunities for women and men: monitoring law and practice in new member states and accession countries of the European Union’ says that although EU membership has been a catalyst for improvements in gender equality in the new member states, legal changes have not had a “meaningful impact” on the daily lives of men and women.

The study released by the Open Society Institute (OSI) at the European Parliament in Brussels Wednesday (May 4) reveals the disparities women face in employment opportunities, wages, and political representation in the ten new member states – Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. They all joined the EU last May.

The U.S.-based OSI chaired by philanthropist George Soros promotes democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal and social reform.

The report identifies “a general lack of awareness” among men and women about how gender inequality affects their daily lives, as well as a lack of political will to enforce existing national and EU gender equality policies.

In a number of the EU’s newest member states significant gender pay gaps exist and are increasing throughout the region, the report says. Bulgaria, Estonia and Slovakia top the bad stakes as countries with a 25 to 30 percent pay gap between men and women.

In many countries EU directives have still not been implemented. Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria have not yet adopted a gender equality strategy, the report says.

The labour market remains segregated and representation of women in decision-making bodies remains “shockingly” weak.

Throughout the new member states women are “dramatically” underrepresented in government, the report says. While women make up just over 50 percent of Hungary’s population, they are only nine percent in parliament. In Lithuania there are only two women cabinet ministers, in Poland there is one, and in Slovakia there is none.

In Lithuania, Estonia and the Czech Republic men comprise only one percent of all people taking parental leave.

The report makes a series of recommendations to national governments and to the EU on how to improve the bloc’s gender practices.

The OSI urges the newest member states to ensure “full implementation of all EU legislative measures on gender equality” and to establish independent gender equality bodies to monitor practices such as equal pay and participation in the economic, political and social decision-making process.

It also urges the governments in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland to adopt official gender equality strategies and appeals to all governments to collect gender disaggregated statistical data, without which the OSI says gender equality policies “can hardly be successful.”

The report says the EU should monitor implementation of legislation related to gender equality in the new member states and to systematically collect data on violence against women.

Zita Gurmai, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament and vice-chairperson of its committee on women’s rights and gender equality, said the report’s findings confirmed that more work is needed if the new member states are to translate the EU’s commitment to gender mainstreaming .

“These findings show us that we need to drastically increase our efforts to get legally binding EU instruments addressing gender equality in decision-making,” she told media representatives at the launch of the report.

Roxana Tesiu, co-author of the report, said the report also offered advice to candidate countries and called on the government of EU candidate Romania “to offer women real chances to contribute to economic and social changes in the country.”