The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has appealed to all member States “to turn the current momentum into action and to bridge gender gaps and structural barriers in order to achieve the full empowerment of every girl and woman”. One of the objectives of the current Danish Chairmanship is to “stregthen gender equality work in the Council of Europe with a particular focus on how to involve more men in promoting gender equality”.
The Deputy Secretary General has stressed, in a video message, the need for “new standards to fight sexism and stereotypes – whether in education and the workplace, the internet and social media”. Work is under way to prepare a Committee of Ministers Recommendation to Prevent and Combat Sexism.
The Commissioner for Human Rights, in a video message, underlined that “politicians and opinion makers should promote an honest and well-informed public debate about the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention)”.
The PACE Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination has recalled that “it is up to each and everyone of us, as social actors and in the different environments in which we operate, to dismantle the stereoypes and prejudice that feed inequality between women and men”.
The President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities has declared that “it is by strengthening the position of women in society and by increasing their presence in all public spheres that we can get things to improve”.
Empowering Roma and Traveller women and girls to access leadership positions as key to their inclusion, and GRECO’s call on the Slovenian authorities to “pay particular attention to the recruitment and integration of women at all levels of the police, not only at lower or support posts”, were also specific gender equality-related news published by the Council of Europe on the ocassion of 2018 International Women’s Day, in addition to the news about the adoption of the Council of Europe Gender equality Strategy 2018-2023.
