ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!

A different Europe, the Europe of all of us, of all the peoples, will not be possible without the full participation and involvement of Women on the Move.

For this change, we, European Feminists, migrant women, workers and unemployed, young and older, lesbians, women from all over Europe, women of different minorities, have worked in different seminars and workshops in order to build alternative policies. We therefore make the following proposals:

We decided to address:

–  Violence in the public and private sphere
–  Democracy and Feminism-the role of feminism in democracy
–  Precariousness, Poverty
–  Feminist strategies in Central-Eastern Europe, in the Mediterranean basin
–  Sexism and precariousness in the life of Young Women in Europe
–  Religious influence in political life, the attack on abortion rights
–  Militarization, Women against War and Occupations
–  Welfare, Social state, Bolkenstein and Women’s Rights, Liberalisation and Deregulation of Markets
–  Equal rights for migrant women, racism
–  Trafficking, merchandisation and commercialisation of women’s bodies
–  Sexual Discrimination including lesbian women’s rights

We call for convergent campaigns throughout Europe:

* European campaign and European law: mass mobilization against violence towards women.

* Poverty, precariousness: marches in June 2007 to the G8 with European social movements

* Bolkestein and women’s rights: a day of action in October or November in Brussels.

* Campaign against «Eros centres» and trafficking of women during the next Football World Cup in Germany.

 FEMINIST ALTERNATIVE PROPOSALS FROM FEMINIST SEMINARS:

WOMEN IN STRUGGLE against GENDER VIOLENCE

European Campaign and European Law

–  Set up a large unitary mobilisation protesting against violence against women at a
European level.
–  On 25 November 2006, international day of action against gender violence targeting women: we should make our common actions visible through a common poster and common slogans throughout Europe.
–  Construction of a European platform which could be launched at a European press conference on 25 November 2007.
–  This platform is to serve as the starting point for a central mobilization before the European elections.

WHICH DEMOCRACY FOR ANOTHER EUROPE?

The role of feminism in politics - Change the rules of THE game. PATRIARCHY, CAPITALISM, EQUALITY and DIFFERENCES

– Gender equality, a basic value for the process of construction of a different Europe
–  Equal political representation in all national and European bodies. Lists not meeting this criterion will be considered invalid.
–  Abolition of patriarchy, following the example of the abolition of slavery.
–  Compelling laws against any kind of discrimination.
–  Free circulation of persons. Stop the penalisation and exclusion of women immigrants.
–  Unpaid working time of women to be taken into account in a radically transformed economy.
–  Status of elected woman to allow for an effective exercise of her mandate.
–  Clause of the most favoured European woman that would oblige the States to implement the most favourable law in order to harmonize women rights according to the most advanced and progressive criteria.

PRECARIOUSNESS, POVERTY

–  Full time employment, meaning an end to precarious contracts and forced part-time employment.
–  European minimum wages for all women.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS and STATUS in CENTRAL and EASTERN EUROPE. CHALLENGES and FEMINIST STRATEGIES

–  Going beyond the boundaries set by the political structures and the borders of the European Union, feminists of Western and Eastern Europe will reinforce their networks of exchange, experience and solidarity.
–  Promotion of their rights and their social and political gains, within a framework of mutual respect and total equality.
–  Full access of women from Central and Eastern Europe to the European political arena.

SEXISM and PRECARIOUSNESS in the life of YOUNG WOMEN in EUROPE

–  Creation of a European network of associations, trade unions and organisations of young feminists.
–  Campaign against «Eros centres» and trafficking of women during the next Football World Cup in Germany.

FEMINISTS FOR A SECULARIST EUROPE

–  Elaboration of a founding document on European secularism, on the basis of which we will launch a coordinated struggle in all countries in order to promote and enrich our conception of a feminist, egalitarian and secular Europe.
–  No religion or religious structure should be supported by the state or considered as “state religion”. Religious freedom should not serve as an alibi to legitimize the violation of women’s rights.
–  We should struggle actively, in the same way as against racism and homophobia, against sexism and the depreciation of women in religious ideologies, against the instigation to hatred and the submission of women, against propaganda against contraception and abortion. These attitudes should be penalized in appropriate legislation.
–  Religious structures should be totally separated from the structures of the state and should not have any means at their disposal to intervene in the public sphere.

WOMEN, WAR, POVERTY AND PEACE

–  To raise awareness of the importance of SCR 1325, supporting national governments in the creation and adoption of policies empowering equal gender participation at all levels of decision making and of the implementation of 1325 through national action plans.
–  To develop the participation of women at peace negotiation tables, organize gender training for peacekeeping missions, and guarantee the protection of vulnerable women in refugee camps.
–  To punish war crimes. No amnesty for rape crimes which are committed during wars.
–  To change the view of women from victims to active agents of change and peace reconstruction.
–  To build a Europe wide network on R 1325.

WOMEN and the BOLKESTEIN DIRECTIVE. The UNDERMINING of the WELFARE STATE and the CONSEQUENCES for WOMEN’S LIVES and GENDER EQUALITY

–  Proposal for a common day of action in October to Brussels to obtain the withdrawal of the Bolkestein directive
–  Proposal to continue the struggle against the Lisbon agenda, economic liberalization and deregularisation.

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 DECLARATION

Made at the WOMEN ASSEMBLY of the 4^th European Social Forum, Athens, 6 May 2006

While we are facing increasing political intervention by churches and religious fundamentalisms are on the rise in Europe, leading to a dramatic undermining of women’s rights and, in spite of the warnings from feminist organizations, such as the World March of Women, towards the organizing committee of the European Social Forum, some of the workshops gave the floor to organizations or speakers who support values contrary to the Porto Alegre Charter and to women’s rights. The Women’s Assembly of the 4^th ESF which met in Athens protests vividly against this situation.

We are participating since the beginning in the construction process of all Social Forums and we are present at the ESF of Athens to build democratic, hence lay alternatives for a different Europe.

Considering the present challenges facing the Social Forums, the Women’s Assembly wishes to stress once again that women should not serve as an alibi for any kind of manipulations. We reject political alliances that are concluded to the detriment of women and which establish priorities for our struggles, putting feminist demands behind anti-racist and anti-war demands. Such processes divide the anti-liberal forces and undermine the strength of the Social Forums. Because women’s rights are universal, feminists are equally involved in the fight against racism and against war/

We call upon men and women who are in agreement with these positions to join forces with us to construct a Europe without discriminations, a Europe of peace, a feminist, lay and hence egalitarian Europe.