SPAIN: EQUALITY IS NOT A UTOPIA

A fundamental commitment to the recognition of social rights and the equality of all citizens is at the core of the initiatives undertaken by the government of Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, writes Jesus Caldera, Minister of Labour and Social Issues of Spain. In this article, Caldera writes that the first law that this administration presented and which received the unanimous support of all groups in parliament was the Comprehensive Law Against Violence Against Women. The draft bill of the Organic Law that was approved by the Council of Ministers on March 3 has the objective of effectively implementing the principle of equality and eliminating all discrimination against women in all areas of private and public life. Its goal is to modify all laws that are affected by the introduction of the principle of real equality and devise effective instruments to apply it to, among other areas, government offices, health and education policy, labour policy, access to new technology, and the information society. Our intent is to make the formal equality consecrated in the Spanish constitution a concrete reality in all areas of life, public and private. With this law, the Spanish government wants to issue naturalisation papers to a cultural change that a large part of Spanish society is already calling for and that needs legal codification.