On October 11, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) welcomed around 300 decision-makers and representatives of civil society, among which AEGEE, represented by the Policy Officer of the Equal Rights Working Group.

EIGE is an autonomous body of the European Union established to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality. During the morning’s panel discussions, the panellists presented the findings of the new Gender Equality Index 2017 and discussed possible solutions to gender inequalities during an event at the Council of the European Union in Brussels.

The Focus Area of Equal Rights has for aim to acknowledge and tackle discrimination based on gender identity, expression and sexual orientation, and promote equity from an intersectional perspective. To achieve this objective, it is absolutely necessary to have access to data revealing the situation of groups of people at the intersection of several grounds for discrimination. For the first time this year, the Gender Equality Index 2017 offers the possibility to compare gender equality between countries with an intersectional perspective.

The Gender Equality Index is a tool created four years ago to evaluate the progress of the EU and the member states and indicate how far (or close) we are from achieving gender equality. The Index measures gender gaps in six core domains – knowledge, time, power health, work and money – and provides comprehensive data in two other satellite domains, violence against women and intersectional inequalities.

The main conclusion of this year Gender Equality Index is the disappointingly slow progress towards Gender equality in Europe between 2005 and 2015, with important disparities between countries.

While gender equality in the domain of power (decision-making position across the political, economic and social sphere) is progressing slowly but steadily, gender inequalities in time use, referring to the allocation of time spent on care, domestic work and social activities are persisting and growing. Young women between ages 15-24 are for instance less likely to take part in leisure activities outside their home (39% of young women workers takes part in sporting, cultural or leisure activities outside of their home, at least daily or several times a week, against 56% of young men workers). They are also way more likely to care for children, elderly or people with disabilities everyday (15,4% of young women between 15-24 against 3,1% of young men).

The event also represented the opportunity to present the new key feature of this year’s Index, that is data on intersectional inequalities. The index provides data showing how gender intersects with age, education, family composition and parenthood, country of birth and disability. Due to the difficulty to gather data on certain types of discrimination, the Index however fails to cover intersections between, for instance, gender and sexual orientation or gender and religion.

These disaggregated data reveal some worrisome inequalities affecting people at the intersection of different identities. During the conference, Pirkko Mahlamäki (Executive committee member of the European disability forum) emphasised for instance the situation of women with disabilities, that are at risk of falling behind in the area of education and labour market, but also three to five times more likely to be victims of domestic abuses.

As underlined by MEP Ernest Urtasun, EU decision-makers have the duty to rely on those data to ensure that EU anti-discrimination policies do not leave groups of people without adequate protection.

To ensure that decision-makers implement evidence-based, inclusive legislations, the gathering of data needs to be strengthened considerably in most member states to obtain a clear picture of inequalities and intersecting discriminations. The Equal Rights Working Group is particularly pleased to see this emphasis on intersectionality and support EIGE’s call to stakeholders to improve the gathering of relevant data to ensure a complete and clear image of how different types of discrimination and inequalities intersect.

Get to know the situation of gender equality in your country, and let’s continue to strive for a more Equal Europe for all!

Written by Juliette Beaulaton, Policy Officer of Equal Right Working Group

Their term starts today. A team of motivated people will officially begin their work on the 1st of August, and there are big expectations about them! It could be the new Comité Directeur (CD) 55 that we are talking about, indeed, but in this case we are referring to the brand new Working Groups, led by the newly elected Working Group Coordinators, namely Viola Bianchetti for Equal Rights, Álvaro González Pérez for European Citizenship, Svenja van der Tol for Youth Development, and Joanna Pankowska for Civic Education.

As most of you already know, the new Working Groups will ensure a fresh and successful start for the new Focus Areas of our three-year-long Strategic Plan.

Even though they still have not begun their term, they have already made history: they have received the highest amount of applications ever, with 62 applications for 28 spots (without counting the coordinators), and each of the teams have eight members (the maximum according to the CIA).

Furthermore, all of the Working Groups have already met via Skype several times and discussed their upcoming plans.  The coordinators have likewise met, in order to promote the team work among the WG themselves. One of the ideas that have come up from their meeting is the establishment of a unified newsletter and of Focus Area action months to take place in 2017/2018.

Before that, Working Groups will be present all around the Network during the NWMs and the Agora, and between September and October they will hold their live meetings. The Public Relations Committee of AEGEE is also working on the WG logos, in order to make them match and have common elements and show visually the level of coordination that wants to be achieved between the Working Groups.

That’s all by now. If you want to stay up-to-date with the news regarding the WGs, subscribe to our newsletter here! Rumors say that they are unstoppable!

Written by Álvaro González Pérez, AEGEE-Heidelberg and European Citizenship Working Group Coordinator

Special thanks to Stas Mahula, AEGEE-Kyїv, for the cover picture.

For the Equal Rights Working Group Coordinator we have Viola Bianchetti from AEGEE-Heidelberg as a candidate. She is a person that sees a bright future for this WG, has some well defined plans already in mind and is passionate about it. Below, you can read why she wants to be the coordinator for the Equal Rights WG.

The AEGEEan: Viola, can you describe yourself in five words?

Viola: Curious, passionate, diligent, sincere, AEGEE-addicted.

Why do you think that this position fits you best and how will the knowledge that you gathered in your AEGEE and non-AEGEE experience help you in coordinating this Working Group?

In my view, a good Working Group Coordinator should master project as well as team management skills. I see the Coordinator as the person who should guide the activities of the Working Group, ensure efficiency and performance, but also build a healthy and productive team environment. I developed the first set of skills starting from my European Voluntary Service in the field of project management, and then inside the Your Vision for EUrope project. On the other hand, I acquired good team management skills while I was responsible for the photoblog Faces of Europe, where I had to coordinate a large number of team members and reporters. In regard to my knowledge about the topic, a Bachelor in Political Science and a Master (in progress) in Politics and Economics of South Asia provided me with a very good understanding of issues related to equal rights, not only in Europe but in a global perspective.

In your programme you mentioned that “Working Group could cooperate with AEGEE projects”. How exactly do you see this for the Equal Rights Working Group?

The most obvious example is Summer University: the ERWG could provide content to locals willing to organise a SU with a focus on equality and non-discrimination. I would also love to collaborate with the next edition of Europe on Track, which could be dedicated to the topic of equal rights, in its broader sense. Also, in case a new Yvote Project would be launched, the ERWG could cooperate on a conference on gender equality and/or LGBT+ rights in Europe.

How do you think that you will manage to engage locals in organising events related to Equal Rights Working Group?

First of all, I believe there is a general interest in the topic over the Network (otherwise the Interest Groups wouldn’t be so active and the Focus Area wouldn’t have been approved). I don’t think my task is that of forcing locals to organise events on a certain issue, but rather to empower them to do so if they want to. Nevertheless, I think some points are important:

a. Give visibility to the ERWG (e.g. during NWMs and Statutory Events, but also online, with an active Facebook page).

b. Inform locals about specific events or initiatives related to equal rights in their city or region, where they could participate or also cooperate.

c. Provide content for the locals, ranging from small workshops and fun activities which can be integrated in local trainings or events, to content support for conferences or bigger events. For the latter, involve also European partners to ensure high quality.

d. Help locals develop partnerships in their cities with associations dealing with discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, nationality and race (within the limits of the geographical and linguistic competences of myself and my team).

How do you see the evolution of the Gender Equality Interest Group and LGBT+ Interest Group in relation with the Equal Rights Working Group?

In my understanding, the Interest Groups have different aims and objectives than the Working Group, and they should not change their nature but just start cooperating with a new actor, i.e. the Working Group. The Interest Groups have the task of fostering discussion and of keeping our Network informed and aware, being in this respect an important ally of the Working Group. Interest Groups and Working Group could promote each other, pool resources (e.g. workshop outlines and toolkits), cooperate on specific initiatives, and in short form an alliance which would benefit both.

What will be the first thing that you will do in case you get elected?

Start recruiting the team!

Tell us the most relevant aspects of your candidature and why should people vote for you.

The two main points of my programme are: focusing on internal education and making the most out of internal and external opportunities. Concerning the first point, as the Focus Area and the Working Group are new, I would like to concentrate on informing our members and raising awareness about the topic. Concerning the second point, I think I have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of thematic work in AEGEE, and I can take advantage of the former and minimise the latter. On the one hand, it is important to cooperate with other AEGEE bodies and truly involve the whole organisation in this Focus Area. On the other hand, we need to reach out to external partners in order to educate ourselves, obtain (training) resources and gain more visibility. Only with the help of other NGOs committed to equal rights we can achieve a high quality level in our activities.

You can read her full candidature here.

Written by Raluca Radu, AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca