Statements

Statements podium These Statements lay out the EWL position on topical matters.

Statements
Historic vote in the European Parliament on the EU accession to the Istanbul Convention: a step closer towards the end of violence against women and girls in Europe!

Posted on 17 May 2023 |

The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) highly welcomes the European Parliament decision to give green light to the EU’s ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, the Istanbul Convention. This historic vote has sent once again a strong message that the EU cares, that women are taken seriously and that violence against women is not a private matter but a structural issue embedded in patriarchy, sexism and misogyny. The (...) Read more
Statements
The European Women’s Lobby calls for an immediate halt to gender apartheid in Afghanistan

Posted on 14 April 2023 |

[Brussels, 14 April 2003] The European Women’s Lobby (EWL), the largest women’s organisation in Europe, with over 2000 member organisations, is extremely concerned about the ongoing situation in Afghanistan and calls for immediate action from the international community to bear pressure on the Taliban to cease the exclusion of women and girls from participating in all areas of life, which amounts to gender apartheid.
‘This situation is intolerable, now and for the future’, states Réka (...) Read more
Statements
Time to deliver: Recognise rape as sexual exploitation at EU level

EWL call to Member States to end violence against women at EU level

Posted on 26 January 2023 |

[Brussels, 26 January 2023] The European Women’s Lobby (EWL), the largest umbrella organization of women’s associations in Europe, is urging all EU Member States to make Europe a safe place for all women and girls. We call on all Member States in the Council to step up their efforts to work towards enhancing and swiftly adopting a Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, including the provisions based on the EU crime of sexual exploitation of women and children in (...) Read more
Statements
The EWL’s Statement on Iran

Posted on 19 December 2022 |

[Brussels, 19 December 2022] The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) strongly condemns the brutal violence targeting women in Iran, as well as towards all those in solidarity with the women and girls who are legitimately claiming their fundamental human rights.
Iranian women are demanding accountability for the death of Masha Amini and are calling for an end to the ongoing repression of women and girls. The EWL stands by them and supports them in their quest for justice, equality between women (...) Read more
Statements
Joint Statement on Surrogacy

Posted on 10 November 2022 |

[Brussels, 10 November 2022] Women’s and human rights organisations call on the European Commission and Parliament to include the crime of reproductive exploitation of women in all their legislative initiatives as violence against women and as trafficking in human beings.
View the PDF version here.
Forward
By reproductive exploitation, we refer to: prohibition of abortion, forced abortion, forced pregnancy, surrogacy, oocytes sales. These practices lock women into the role of reproducers (...) Read more
Statements
Historic moment and lost opportunity for women and girls in the EU

Release of a Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence

Posted on 23 March 2022 |

[Brussels, 22 March 2022] - The Brussels’ Call welcomes the release of a Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence launched by the European Commission on 8 March. While acknowledging this huge step towards a better protection of women and girls in Europe, the Brussels’ Call regrets that the legislative proposal does not legislate upon sexual exploitation of women nor include prostitution as a form of sexual exploitation.
Taking into consideration the Covid-19 (...) Read more
Statements
Period.

World Menstrual Hygiene Day: Statement

Posted on 28 May 2021 |

Blood – we all have it, and we all lose some of it from time to time. For many of us, this happens for a few days roughly every month, as normal as any other part of our lifecycle. Yet, stigma still surrounds women’s periods, leaving the topic as near taboo in so many societies across Europe and globally. This World Menstrual Hygiene Day, the EWL wants to confront the stigma and the taboo of periods and challenge their effects. No matter who or where you are, if you have a period, you should (...) Read more
Statements
Statement and Recommendations regarding the prevention and fight against sexism in the EU: Mobilising against sexism, to see it, name it and stop it

Posted on 15 April 2021 |

[Brussels, 15 April 2021] The European Women’s Lobby stands firm that fully implementing the women’s human rights, changing old ways of thinking and old patterns and structures of our society, including eradicating sex- and gender-based stereotypes, is core to ending sexism across European societies.
Mobilising against sexism to see it, name it and stop it– the motto of the Council of Europe’s campaign against sexism - is still highly needed, all over Europe.
Sexism is a significant obstacle (...) Read more
Statements
Respect. In disrespecting one woman, all women are disrespected.

Posted on 9 April 2021 |

[09 April 2021, Brussels] On 6 April, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, met in Ankara with the President of the Turkish Government, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. [However, in what seems to have been a deliberate diplomatic slight, there was no chair for her to sit at the official meeting.->https://www.politico.eu/article/sofagate-ursula-von-der-leyen-turkey-sofa-charles-michel-recep-tayyip-erdogan
Sadly, this (...) Read more
Statements
The EWL condemns the President of Turkey’s Decision to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention

Letter to HRVP Borrell and the Portuguese Presidency of the Council

Posted on 22 March 2021 |

Your Excellency High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, Your Excellency Portuguese Foreign Minister
We are writing to you concerning today’s EU Foreign Affairs Council, in which an exchange of views will be held on the Southern neighborhood and Turkey. We, the undersigned, are jointly writing to you as President and Vice-President of the European Women’s Lobby (EWL), representing over 2,000 women’s associations across Europe, with members from EU Accession (...) Read more