SPEECH BY MR MEVLÜT ÇAVUŞOĞLU,

PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY

AT THE CONFERENCE ON WOMEN AS AGENTS OF CHANGE IN THE SOUTHERN SHORE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

ROME, 24 and 25 October 2011

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, friends

I would like to express my warm thanks to the organisers of this conference, which comes at the right moment and in the right place.

Indeed, Rome is an excellent choice for a place to host this conference - not only because it is a beautiful city, but also because there are strong historical and cultural links between Italy and all the countries of the Mediterranean, and Italy’s foreign policy is very attentive to developments in that region.

The timing of this conference is also excellent – but allow me to digress slightly to Romans times, when the Mediterranean used to be called mare nostrum, which means “our sea”.

Over the centuries, the Mediterranean has been the link between peoples and cultures but also the theatre of clashes and divisions. Recent events and political changes on its Southern shore make it possible for the Mediterranean to become again “our sea”. A single space, where countries are bound together not only by geographical proximity but also by a communality of values, commitments and aspirations defended by the Council of Europe: democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Dear friends,

Gender equality and the enhancement of the status of women in society are at the core of our common values, and should be at the core of our common commitments and aspirations.

Women were at the forefront of the demonstrations calling for more democracy and freedoms in Egypt, Tunisia and in a number of Arab countries outside the Mediterranean. They contributed to political changes and, in many cases, they managed to ensure that gender equality and better representation of women in politics featured high on the agenda of the new political forces and transitional governments.

However, it was also worrying to see that, in a number of cases, women were sidelined by the very same protesters who participated with them in the marches. In some particularly obnoxious cases, women have been targeted with violence, sometimes sexual violence, for their political activism.

This is not acceptable.

The Assembly believes that the current political developments in the South Mediterranean represent a unique opportunity. An opportunity to ensure that gender equality is enshrined, once and for all, in the new constitutional and legal frameworks of these new democracies, including family law. And also, an opportunity to promote a change in mentality amongst ordinary people and political leadership. Women must have their say in the running of public institutions and in the political decision-making process, in voting and standing for elections, in the same way as men.

The empowerment of women should not be limited to the public sphere. In many countries of the South Mediterranean, women increasingly represent a driving force in the economy, as successful entrepreneurs or highly educated administrators.

With their courage, determination and endurance, women also represent the majority of the immigrant population in Europe. It is often their remittances, gained through hard work and exposure to harsh working conditions, that support children, husbands and families back in their countries of origin.

Regrettably, the political debate in our countries about Muslim women has mostly concentrated on matters such as so-called honour crimes, forced marriages, marital rape, female genital mutilations, and the issue of the headscarf and the integral veil.

Without disputing the importance of these issues, our Assembly Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men is currently exploring the issue of the emancipation of Muslim women in Europe, to highlight their efforts to achieve gender equality and equal opportunities in European societies, in relation to men but also to non-Muslim women. We therefore believe that women from the South are drivers of change also in European societies. They promote and strengthen our understanding of equal opportunities, tolerance and dialogue.

Let me, however, add a fundamental consideration, valid for any country and any geographical area in the world: there cannot be any real gender equality as long as violence against women persists.

No culture, religion or tradition can be used to justify violence and inequality between human beings. Freedom from violence is a basic human right, without which all the other rights are meaningless.

The Council of Europe has established important benchmarks in this area, through a number of Assembly Resolutions and, more recently, the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the so-called Istanbul Convention).

In the framework of the Council of Europe campaign which preceded the adoption of the Convention, the Assembly set up a Network of contact parliamentarians committed to combating violence against women. It is currently composed of 43 members of parliamentary delegations of observer and member states to the Parliamentary Assembly. They have so far conducted more than 200 activities in different countries and they are doing a great job in raising awareness of this plight amongst parliamentarians and the general public. I know that the Chairman of the Committee on Equal Opportunities, Mr Mendes Bota, who is with us today, is thinking of enlarging the Network further, to the southern Mediterranean, and I hope that this Conference will help develop this idea.

Dear friends,

The Assembly was visionary when, in June 2009, it adopted Resolution 1680, in which it resolved ‘to establish a new status for institutional co-operation with parliaments of non-member states in neighbouring regions’. The purpose of this formal co-operation, called ‘Partnership for democracy’ is ‘consolidating democratic transformations and promoting stability, good governance, respect for human rights and the rule of law’.

I am pleased to inform you that, so far, the Parliament of Morocco and the Palestinian National Council have obtained this status, and the parliament of Kyrgyzstan has also officially expressed its intention to request it. I hope that more parliaments will follow and I count on you to follow up this matter with your authorities once you are back.

The status of a Partner for democracy comes with important benefits, but also with commitments, which the Assembly will monitor on a regular basis. The parliament which requests such a status should make an explicit reference to its aspiration to embrace the values of the Council of Europe. Amongst these values, gender equality is a core element. The candidate parliament should in particular commit itself to encourage balanced participation of women and men in public and political life. Furthermore, the parliamentary delegation enjoying Partner for democracy status should include at least the same percentage of the under-represented sex as is present in the parliament, and in any case one representative of each sex.

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues

As I said at the beginning of my speech, the Romans used to call the Mediterranean the mare nostrum, our sea.

I would like to call it a sea of opportunities.

Recent developments on the Southern shore of the Mediterranean give us the opportunity to deepen understanding and dialogue between people from different cultures and religions. Intercultural and inter-religious dialogue has been at the heart of our Assembly’s work. We believe that it is only through this kind of dialogue that we can actively promote the principles of tolerance and respect for differences and fight against extremism and xenophobia in our societies.

The current events also give us an unprecedented opportunity to establish stable and structured forms of co-operation, based on common values, commitments and aspirations. Let me just outline a few avenues which the Assembly considers as particularly beneficial (and here I refer to the recently adopted Assembly Resolution on co-operation between the Council of Europe and the emerging democracies in the Arab world):

•       countries from the South of the Mediterranean could take into account the standards of Council of Europe conventions in the field of human rights. They could also accede to our legal instruments open to non-member states and enlarged partial agreements, in particular the North-South Centre and the Venice Commission.

•       we should also develop a dialogue with those civil society forces which promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and help them become stronger. It is also imperative to meet the need of young people, including young women, of the South to communicate with the outside.

I would like to thank very much the North South Centre and the Italian parliament for this initiative.

My wish is that this Conference is not the end, but the beginning of a process in which women from the two shores of the Mediterranean work hand-in-hand to achieve the same goals.

Thank you very much.