The commitment of Italian MEPs for women

The European Union boasts to host some of the companies with the greatest gender equality in the world. It boasts that in the last five years historical progress with the rules on remuneration transparency, the balance between work and private life, the gender balance in the board of directors and the fight against violence against women. But it’s not enough. Just browse the latest report on gender equality to realize it: one in three women has undergone violence; One in six has been the victim of sexual violence. Women have fewer jobs and when they have a job they are paid less than their colleagues men.

The European Commission has published a roadmap to make the company more fair. But on this there is also the commitment of the European Parliament, of many MEP also Italian. For example, they do not forgive the EU states not to have approved last year the definition of rape as a European crime.

“Sex without consensus is rape. Only one is a yes”, insists with the EGI The MEP of Forza Italia (PPE), Caterina Chinnici. “Continue and complete the work started in the previous legislature on the to the fight against violence against women and domestic violence, so that the crime of rape is a European crime, it is my priority”, she highlights she who is decane in Strasbourg.

He joins the battle, from the Banks of the Greens, Benedetta Scuderi, one of the youngest faces of the hemicycle. “That was a lost opportunity that, however, must be made sure to recover. Also because so consent would become a focal point,” he explains. “The burden of proof must not fall on the victims, as unfortunately often happens now in several European states,” he adds.

“We are talking about a serious crime that unfortunately also leaves long -term consequences on the victims”, agrees the MEP of the League, Isabella tablecloths, which however expresses “some doubts about the method, since there are discordant opinions and many doubts about the fact that it is an EU competence, but rather of the Member States”.

The political commitment to the European Parliament in favor of equality is not limited to the battle against violence. There are many other battles (small and large) which, however, make the difference in the daily life of millions of women. The MEP of the Democratic Party, vice president of the S&D group, Camilla Laureti, is committed for example on the wage gap.

“We must invest in the female empowerment because the overcoming of gender gap is a great question of justice, but also a great question of development and growth for Europe,” he underlines. And it must be done in all sectors. “I deal with agriculture and it is my priority to continue the commitment to encourage the protagonism of the farmers, overcoming the difficulties they encounter, for example, in accessing credit and land, also linked to the persistence of prejudices and cultural stereotypes”, points out.

“The farms led by women, who are about 30%in Europe, represent a model on the level of innovation and therefore of sustainability, as well as the multifunctionality of the sector. Not supporting them would be a strategic error precisely for the future of agriculture”, he adds.

Once again the gap emerges, the absence of women. And – as the MEP of the 5 Star Movement, Carolina Morace denounces – is often an absence that is also remarked in European institutions. “Too often, in the institutional events organized to the European Parliament, for example, the majority of experts invited as speakers are men,” he says. “It is malcostume that does not arise from the lack of experts, but for consolidated dynamics in the selection of the speakers, who do not fully take into account the presence of qualified professionals in different sectors”. Morace, a former coach of the women’s national team and the first woman to enter the Hall of Fame of Italian football, therefore proposes to “create a database of experts divided by thematic areas to which all the MEPs can access when they organize events”.

It would be a practical and immediate support for all parliamentarians, helping to make events more balanced and representative of society. For Scuderi there is no equality even in the rooms in which they make decisions, even to the European Parliament. “In this mandate there are fewer young people and women, not to mention the female presence in the European Commission. We have very few and very few young people in politics also in Italy, where, however, the passive electorate at 25 for the European elections further limits their entry, unlike other states that do not apply this threshold. Thus, in fact, it is legally discriminating at the European population, and this is made possible by the attitude of a Europe that does not want to become a union of rights. and political union, but only of the market “.