What has changed in Europe and Portugal in 30 years? What needs to change? Two answers in one word: “A lot”. And “a lot” in “relatively short time”. In Portugal, “our equality policy began to take effect in a systematic way from the year 2000”. Before that, Elza Pais, president of the Socialist Women points out, what existed was “the normalized way in which inequalities were seen as non-priority. They were seen as if they were part, as if they were part of normal society, of normality”. . After all, it is only “23 years ago that equality policies began to exist in a structured way, such as the fight against domestic violence, which became a public crime, or the parity law”.
And if in Portugal the delay for “some political parity” lasted for decades, for example in the European Parliament (EP), whose first elections were in 1979, the evolution was just as slow: in 1979, 16.6% of the female MEP members elected, in 2019 the bar rose to 41%. But then it dropped to 38.9%, with the changes and substitutions, which despite everything is still higher than the world average in national parliaments and above the European average, which is 30.5%. Women elected to the European Parliament by Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia and Greece represent less than 25% – Cyprus no longer has any MEPs.
On the “world map”, “political equality”, according to the United Nations, is more present in Europe – albeit with large fluctuations between countries: there are 30% differences – and then in Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, Africa South Africa, Namibia , Mozambique and New Zealand.
In the United Nations ranking, in terms of the presence of women in parliaments, Portugal ranks 41st out of 190 countries, while it ranks 28th in the ranking of women leading ministerial offices. We would be where we are now,” says Elza Pais.
And now? Concerns are growing as Europe takes a major step backwards in equality laws. For example, two cases: Hungary, where LGBTIQ people are persecuted, or Poland, where IVG, which was legal, no longer has this wave of sexism, xenophobia, racism. We must be attentive and vigilant, avoid these misfortunes. The European Parliament and the European Commission must discuss how to stop these setbacks, put pressure to stop these unacceptable setbacks.”
Zita Gurmai, president of the European Socialist Women (PES Women), which champions a “feminist Europe”, says in statements to DN that she is deeply concerned about “these far-right attacks on women’s rights, as well as on LGBTIQ communities and migrants across Europe. Conservative and right-wing forces are present in all our countries; in some openly, in others they lurk in the shadows, ready to take away our rights. We must fight and not back down on equality.”
“We should not be complacent or take for granted what we have achieved. True gender equality still does not exist in any country in the world. Gender violence is still one of the biggest barriers to achieving gender equality. This has become even more evident since the covid -19 pandemic,” he adds.
The growth of populism in Europe and the risk of women’s rights backsliding is precisely the first topic to be addressed at the event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the European Socialist Women (PES Women), taking place this afternoon at the national headquarters of the PS , in Lisbon, where “national and international experts in the field of gender equality, European policy, local policy and the fight against violence against women” gather.
women in business
Everything is “apparently” peaceful here. It has yet to be enshrined in Portuguese law, for example the European directive – which was adopted on November 22, 2022 and has an adjustment period until June 30, 2026 – which enshrines “equality for the boards of directors of listed companies” [e no caso português é pedido também o setor público empresarial por adaptação da Lei n.º 62/2017] 33% women in executive positions on boards of directors and 40% in non-executive positions.
In January 2002, socialist women put the question to António Costa [a tal adaptação da Lei n.º 62/2017] who “committed to look into this issue. The 2017 law was good, but women were pushed into non-executive positions. listed companies and we must do the same in the state-owned corporate sector. corporate sector, without changing the other, the state corporate sector”.
Which will be “just an upgrade” for Portugal, in the words of Elza Pais, because it is a “step above the 33% we already have, and because it can solve the current “perverse application of the law”. law only says 33%, what happened was women stayed in non-executive positions for the most part.”
MEP Maria da Graça Carvalho acknowledged at the time that she would like a result “more ambitious”, but we all agreed that it is better to achieve something, which will then be improved, than to continue with nothing.
For her part, socialist Maria Manuel Leitão Marques admitted that she was “not happy that this is happening, that the result is not ideal, but I understand that there is still a way to go. It would be more difficult if we were very demanding”.
Big change? The new rules, following the application of the directive, will affect the “SAD of football clubs, a world of men”.
The other issue focuses on the parity law which “needs to be reviewed”. It is the aim of the “50/50”, because it is enough to see as an example that “we have a party with a parliamentary seat [o Chega] who brought in 12 deputies and only one woman… and kept the law”.
What needs to change? “In the last revision, contrary to what the PS wanted, the law does not have a gender change in the first two places [nas listas de candidatos] and that means if a party decides to put women in third, sixth or ninth place [nas listas] representativeness is rapidly declining. There is this example, they have obeyed the law and only one woman has been chosen,” replies Elza Pais.
And why don’t they change now that the PS has an absolute majority? The answer is dry and immediate. “I hope progress is made in amending the parity law”. Are you sure your party will do it? “I am…”. And then he emphasizes that there is a past that justifies trust. “… By the way, it means resuming something that the PS wanted and that failed. It makes no sense not to do it now. We don’t have to convince the party and the government, because that rule already existed in an earlier proposal” . Will it happen then? The answer comes almost as an outburst: “It doesn’t occur to me that this isn’t the case.”
Domestic violence, rape and harassment
The first still needs an “upgrade”, the second “consensus” and the third “agreements”.
In domestic violence, the “disclosure of crime” reveals an “increasing stabilization” that must be “stopped”. Elza Pais uses figures from the Annual Internal Security Report: “We have about 30 women a year who are murdered, we have about 30,000 complaints a year… measures are needed to stop this”.
The promise that domestic violence is “a priority” for the government, along with juvenile delinquency and group crime, was made on March 28 by Justice Minister Catarina Sarmento e Castro, after a meeting of the Supreme Council for Homeland Security.
“Domestic violence is a problem that continues to be a source of concern and attention and will continue to be one of the crimes that will receive the most attention in the criminal justice policy law. This is one of the most important investigative and preventive crimes (. . .) In the next criminal justice policy law, this will be a priority for the security forces and services, which means they will always have priority in prevention and detection,” he assured.
On April 14, Catarina Sarmento e Castro explained, after the adoption of the criminal policy law, that “we have here as crimes of priority investigation the crimes committed in the form of organized crime or group violence and also drug trafficking, also in a prison setting, not because of the increase they’ve had, but because of the connection to other crimes and the impact on prison life.
The law kept the fight against corruption and money laundering, domestic violence, human trafficking, crimes against freedom and sexual self-determination, forest fire crimes or traffic crimes as priorities, but “domestic violence” lost weight in the discourse despite the Justice Minister guaranteeing that the law “devoted special attention to the victim”, which she considered “a novelty of this criminal justice policy bill, which is consistent with what we are doing at the Department of Justice, in terms of defining a national strategy for the protection of victims, which will happen for the first time in Portugal”.
Elza Pais believes that among the “measures to stop” the “increasing” stabilization of domestic violence, it is necessary, namely “the removal of the aggressor from the family home”.
“In order not to be attacked, sometimes even murdered, the woman has to go to shelters. This is double victimization: she is attacked and has to leave her social habitat, while the aggressor has the parental home at his disposal,” underlined.
Then there is the controversial issue that rape is a public crime. [discussão que divide os socialistas] and the proposal of, for example, BE to create the crime of sexual harassment and the crime of qualified sexual harassment.
Since 2015, harassment falls, in a generic way, under “sexual harassment”, but “harassment does not only fall under sexual harassment”, Joana Mortágua defended. The bill was rejected with the opposition of the PS.
“I am not commenting, these are topics that are discussed in parliament,” says Elza Pais.
Source: DN
