Recommendation 1911 (2010) Final version

Women and the economic and financial crisis

Author(s): Parliamentary Assembly

Origin - Assembly debate on 27 April 2010 (13th Sitting) (see Doc. 12195, report of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, rapporteur: Mrs Memecan). Text adopted by the Assembly on 27 April 2010 (13th Sitting).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 1719 (2010) on women and the economic and financial crisis. It deplores that the few modest gains made by women in the world of work in the past – joining the workforce, starting their own businesses and, on occasion, breaking through the “glass ceiling” – risk being wiped out by the crisis, although there are, in fact, few gains to be wiped out with regard to the gender wage gap, the sharing of household and care responsibilities, access to full-time, well-paid, secure and formal employment for women, and the participation of women in political, financial and economic decision making.

2. The Assembly thus recommends that the Committee of Ministers:

2.1. pursue its declared aim of bridging the gap between de jure and de facto gender equality in Council of Europe member states with new vigour, in particular by instructing the competent committee to draft an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5) in order to enshrine the right to equality for women and men therein, as well as the necessary exception allowing positive discrimination measures for the under-represented sex;

2.2. implement the recommendations contained in Recommendation 1899 (2010) on increasing women’s representation in politics through the electoral system and Recommendation 1907 (2010) on the wage gap between women and men, as well as in other relevant Assembly texts, as soon as possible;

2.3. give priority to gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting in its own work, and the work of its committees, in particular as far as equal participation of women and men in political and public decision making is concerned;

2.4. encourage member states to promote and ensure gender balance in leadership and decision-making positions while reforming the financial institutions and also to promote and ensure similar gender balance in businesses in the public and private sector.