The EWL has a number of subcommittees and ad-hoc committees which act as consultative groups, with the aim of supporting the delivery of our strategic aims. Some committees are set up for specific pieces of work while others are ongoing committees, with membership that changes following the EWL Board elections. The committees mostly lead on internal mechanisms and procedures, as opposed to EWL’s Working Structures which focus on our policy and advocacy work.
The Membership Committee’s role is to assess applications for membership and assist existing full member organisations and new applicants to meet the criteria for membership as set out in the Statutes. It assesses and gives advice to the Executive Committee on membership issues of EWL as they arise, such as dealing with membership fees, providing advice on queries or complaints from and about members and so forth.
The purpose of the Statutes Review Committee is to act as an advisory and consultative body to the EWL membership in the process of reviewing the EWL Statutes and Internal Rules, with the aim of ensuring the Statutes serve the purpose and goals of the organisation and that they align with Belgian law.
Its purpose is to develop a clear policy on Diversity, Inclusion and Equality for EWL and a framework for translating this policy into action, regarding the responsibilities of the General Assembly, Board of Administration, the Executive Committee, Secretariat and all those associated with the EWL’s work. The overarching aim is to mainstream the principles and practice of diversity, inclusion and equality into all EWL work plans and activities for achieving gender equality.
The Funding and Finance Committee (FFCom) was set up in 2017 with the overall responsibility in matching EWL’s progress towards our Financial Resilience and Sustainability Plan and provide guidance to the Executive Committee in order to have sound insight into the funding and finance procedures, as well as the potential risks and opportunities.
The Emergency Motions (EM) Committee’s role is to manage and monitor all the necessary procedures for handling the management of the emergency motions for the General Assembly. Each year, it drafts the call for EM and receive, review and decide on the proposed motions, as well as manage the EM session at the GA.
The Issue Group Committee’s role is to oversee the organisation of Issue Groups during EWL’s annual General Assembly. It prepares the call for Issue Groups and its procedure each year ahead of the GA, reviews and decides on the proposed workshops, and prepares the workshops at the GA.
The Credential Committee is formed at the Board meeting before the GA where elections take place iin order to ensure that all full members planning to attend and to vote at the General Assembly meet all the necessary criteria as set out in the Statutes and Internal Rules. The Credential Committee is usually set up temporarily and active during the GA only, supporting the elections of the Board and the Executive Committee
The Wellbeing Working Group is a consultative body within EWL to ensure the wellbeing of both representative members and the Secretariat. This also relates to an overview of organisational and individual communication and processes, and to help prevent any forms of discrimination and harassment. Its work is based on feminist principles of solidarity, autonomy, participation and inclusion.
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The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) is the largest umbrella organization of women’s associations in the European Union, working to promote women’s rights and gender equality.
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We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to