Half way in the implementation of its Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017, the Gender Equality Commission (GEC) of the Council of Europe organised a conference on 30 June and 1 July 2016 in Tallinn, Estonia, in partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia, in the context of Estonia’s Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

The aim of the Conference was to look at progress in the implementation of the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017; launch discussions on the next strategy; and to examine two specific topics: (1) gender mainstreaming and (2) the impact of social media on gender equality.

The Conference brought together members of the GEC, Council of Europe Gender Equality Rapporteurs (GERs) in other Council of Europe committees; high level decision makers from member states; a range of international organisations including the European Commission and UN Women; and representatives of civil society.

The present Strategy, covering the period 2014 – 2017, has five key priority areas/strategic objectives:

1. Combating gender stereotypes and sexism.

2. Preventing and combating violence against women.

3. Guaranteeing equal access of women to justice.

4. Achieving balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making.

5. Achieving gender mainstreaming in all policies and measures.

The Conference heard reports of significant progress under all five of these priority areas. However, as the Estonian Minister for Foreign Affairs pointed out, “no country in the world has achieved full gender equality – it remains a challenge...” and, as the leading organisation fostering human rights in Europe, the Council of Europe continues to play an essential role in advancing the equality of women in all sectors in accordance with the standards and mechanisms adopted by the Committee of Ministers.

Expert panels led discussion on two topics of special concern during the Conference. The first focused on the place of social media in sharing knowledge and information. Although there were many positive messages about the capacity of social media to reach out to young people and to those living in remote communities about gender equality, much of the debate focused on the negative aspects of social media from a gender equality perspective, including cyber bullying, revenge porn and the exploitation of women, among others. The debate led to recommendations to member states, the Council of Europe and the media to foster the positive opportunities and address the problems associated with social media.

In recent years, the Council of Europe has adopted an exemplary approach to the mainstreaming of gender equality within its organisation, as has the United Nations (UN), most recently under the direction of UN Women. These efforts might well be replicated to a greater extent in member states, as the Conference heard that few countries have fully mainstreamed gender in all their policy making processes. The debate led to clear recommendations, largely addressed to member state governments.

The final panels of the Tallinn Conference returned to the theme of the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy and discussed the possible content of its successor which will be developed in the coming year. The following are the key recommendations in this regard:

1. In developing its new gender equality strategy, the GEC should consider progress and achievements on each priority under the present Strategy; the added value of continuing work on that priority; emerging issues; linkages to the overarching priorities of the Council of Europe; and the avoidance of duplication of work undertaken by other international bodies.

2. The new gender equality strategy must be targeted and ambitious in its content; have the flexibility to respond to emerging issues; be grounded in the reality of scarce resources; and meet the needs of the member states and the Council of Europe.

3. The GEC should continue to serve as advocate at the national level for the implementation of all Council of Europe standards on gender equality.

4. The GEC should continue to collaborate with the other regional and international bodies, strengthening links where appropriate, particularly in light of the new UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

5. In considering major emerging issues such as migration, the GEC might assess the scope of its potential contribution to the challenges and identify linkages between existing priorities such as ‘women’s access to justice’ and ‘violence against women’, both of which are addressed by the Council of Europe as very significant challenges for migrant women, including for women refugees and asylum seekers.

6. The GEC might also consider establishing a stand-alone priority or a cross-cutting theme to address the intersectionality of discrimination against women by starting a dialogue on the specific needs of women from groups such as Roma women; women from ethnic minorities; women with a disability; LBT women; migrant women; older women; women experiencing poverty.

7. In developing its new strategy, the GEC might consider how it can further use social media to promote awareness of gender stereotypes and sexism, reaching out in particular to young people and also to men in leadership roles, both are essential agents for change, albeit from very different perspectives.

8. Any future work on violence against women might include work on the misuse of the internet and social media as resources to perpetrate violence against women, through cyber bullying, hate speech, revenge porn, grooming, etc.

9. The mainstreaming of gender equality in the Council of Europe (and in the UN) serves as a model of good practice to be replicated by member state governments in a more concerted manner, 21 years after the adoption Beijing Platform for Action. Member states are encouraged to be more proactive in implementing gender mainstreaming at national level, while retaining it as a core principle underpinning the new strategy (building on achievements to date and ensuring that all policies and measures of the Council of Europe integrate a gender perspective).

10. While there are still significant deficits in relation to women in decision-making roles, despite the fact that the impetus lies with the member states in closing the gaps, the Council of Europe plays an important role in providing them with support to implement existing standards.

Foreword

Three years have passed since the launch of the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017. At the Conference in Tallinn, organised jointly by the Gender Equality Commission and the Ministry of Social Welfare of Estonia, we had the opportunity to look at the work of the GEC and the Council of Europe over these years. We celebrated progress, discussed barriers and challenges and how to overcome them, and opened the conversation about priority areas for future work.

The work of the Gender Equality Commission has been pivotal to achievements and progress with the implementation of the Strategy and its impact at national level. The Gender Equality Commission is determined to continue its work to support member states in their efforts to advance and empower women and to effectively realise de facto as well as de jure gender equality. Over the next year, we will be evaluating the current Strategy and developing its successor.

We know that sexism and gender stereotypes are not yet eradicated, that violence against women continues at an alarming rate, that we are far from having a balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making, that women do not have equal access to justice, and that much needs to be done to successfully mainstream a gender approach in all policies and measures.

The current humanitarian and financial crisis has brought about new challenges. Europe needs our joint forces and efforts to make progress towards real gender equality in everyday life. The Council of Europe has numerous and powerful standards addressing gender equality challenges, including the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention), the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, the European Social Charter and many relevant Recommendations from the Committee of Ministers.

For the Council of Europe, achieving gender equality is fundamental to protecting human rights; the functioning of a democracy; respect for the rule of law; and economic growth and sustainability. In developing a new strategy, we will draw on the Conference discussions summarised in this report. We must review our approach to existing priorities in close co-operation and consultation with our member states and our partners. I am reassured by the spirit of co-operation and partnerships demonstrated at this conference by member states, international organisations and civil society, and believe that this will enrich our forthcoming work.

Sergiy Kyslytsya

Chairperson of the Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe

Introduction

Achieving gender equality is central to the protection of human rights, the functioning of democracy, respect for the rule of law and economic growth and sustainability.

Thorbjørn Jagland,

Secretary General of the Council of Europe

The Council of Europe has, as Europe’s leading human rights organisation, worked proactively for over sixty years to foster gender equality. Gender equality is a prerequisite to a well-functioning democracy, to the full exercise of human rights and to economic growth, competitiveness and the fight against poverty.

The challenge of fostering gender equality has been addressed through international charters and conventions, coupled with international and national legislation. It has also been addressed through programmes of positive actions, again at international and national levels, coupled with many initiatives at regional and even local levels. However, despite this work, inequalities between women and men persist in all sectors of society and in all democracies, even those which serve as global models.

The role of international bodies such as the United Nations, including UN Women; the Council of Europe; and the Institutions of the EU, has been central to the development of conventions and the legal acquis, and in maintaining the focus of key stakeholders, including governments, business, civil society and the media on the importance of attaining de facto gender equality as a human right and as an instrument to foster economic growth and promote social well-being.

In 2011, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a new approach to advance Europe’s work on gender equality. It introduced a new Transversal Programme which aimed to increase the impact and visibility of gender equality standards both within the entire body of the Council of Europe and at intergovernmental level. The new approach has two elements. It has enshrined gender mainstreaming as a transversal principle across all its decision making, advisory and monitoring bodies, and it established the Gender Equality Commission to steer the intergovernmental work to achieve gender equality.

It was the Committee’s intention that this work would be underpinned by the relevant recommendations[1] of the Committee of Ministers including the ‘Gender Equality Standards and Mechanisms’[2] developed by the Steering Committee for Equality between Women and Men in 2007.

The new Gender Equality Commission (GEC) was complemented by the call to appoint a Gender Equality Rapporteur (GER) in each of the Council of Europe’s steering committees, monitoring bodies or partial agreements; the designation by member states of a National Focal Point (NFP), to provide the link between the Council of Europe Secretariat and the key players with responsibility for gender equality and the promotion of international standards at member state level; and the appointment of the Gender Mainstreaming Team which collaborates across the Council of Europe Secretariat.

In its work, the GEC also collaborates with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the Conference of INGOs. Furthermore the Organisation’s work on gender equality is further enhanced through co-operation with the relevant UN agencies (including UN Women); the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE); the World Bank; the Organization of American States (OAS); the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); and with institutions and agencies at EU level, including the European Commission, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) and the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

The Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017

The first major task of the new GEC and the Secretariat was the preparation of the Council of Europe’s first gender equality strategy which was adopted by the Committee of Ministers in November 2013. This marked a formal commitment to operationalise the extensive legal base and recommendations on gender equality issues in an action plan, focusing on a number of key priorities. Its purpose was to build upon the strengths, specificities and the added value of the Council of Europe.

The overarching goal of the Gender Equality Strategy is ‘to achieve the advancement and empowering of women and hence the effective realisation of gender equality in Council of Europe member States by supporting the implementation of existing standards’.[3]

The Strategy identified five key priority areas/strategic objectives:

1. Combating gender stereotypes and sexism

2. Preventing and combating violence against women

3. Guaranteeing equal access of women to justice

4. Achieving balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making

5. Achieving gender mainstreaming in all policies and measures.

The GEC oversees the implementation of the Strategy, submitting annual progress reports to the Committee of Ministers. The preparation and implementation of the Strategy continues to be complemented by a programme of work by the Secretariat which included the organisation of a number of key actions and events related to the key strategic objectives and the publication of a number of important research, guidance and informational documents. A list of the key events organised to date is given in Appendix V and the key publications are detailed in Appendix VI.

‘Are we there yet?’ – The 2016 Gender Equality Conference

Half way in the implementation of the Gender Equality Strategy, the GEC organised a conference in partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia in the framework of Estonia’s Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, to look at progress in the implementation of the Strategy; launch discussions on its successor and to examine two specific topics: (1) gender mainstreaming and (2) the impact of new media on gender equality.

The Conference brought together approximately 160 participants comprised of representatives from 38 member states of the Council of Europe, members of the GEC, GERs, high-level decision-makers from member states, and international organisations such as the European Commission and UN Women, and representatives of civil society.

The Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017: Taking stock

Gender Equality should be seen as the quality

mark of a well-functioning democracy

Taavi Rōivas

Prime Minister of Estonia

There is ample evidence that gender inequality persists in 21^st century Europe. The political, justice and socio-economic systems have not yet been transformed to meet the needs and exploit fully the potential and valuable contribution which could be made by the female population. Persistent societal norms and the media contribute to depict women as subordinate members. This leads to the ongoing sexualisation of women and to violence against them.

This ongoing challenge has been recognised globally with the adoption by the United Nations of a stand-alone Goal (SDG5) for Gender Equality ‘to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,[4] while a further ten of the 17 Goals have gender sensitive targets, reflecting the universal reach of gender equality.

Work has also advanced at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which, in 2015, reviewed progress in the 20 years since the Beijing Platform for Action was adopted and considered ‘the challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals’[5], while CSW60 in 2016 reviewed ‘women’s empowerment and the link to sustainable development’.[6]

At EU level, a new ‘Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality’ was published by the European Commission in 2015.[7] It focuses on key aspects of women’s economic engagement; their role in decision-making; combating gender-based violence; and the promotion of gender equality and women’s rights across the world.

The complementarity of the work of the Council of Europe to that of both UN Women and the EU brings added value, building on the strengths of each body. This also facilitates exchanges of good practice which assist member states in formulating positive actions which remain central to the methodology for achieving gender equality.

Furthermore, each of the bodies has adopted a new focus on the goal of mainstreaming gender across their organisation and this work should also trigger good practices to be replicated by member states across Europe.

Despite these positive steps, external challenges to the attainment of de facto gender equality persist or are emerging. These include challenges such as the ‘rising conservatism and a pushback on gender equality and women’s rights and empowerment’ as identified in the 20 year review of Beijing or the annual evaluation of the implementation of the Council of Europe Strategy. Furthermore the reduction in resources for national gender equality mechanisms is impacting on work at member state level. Additional and important challenges arise from intersectionality affecting, among others, migrant women; women refugees and asylum seekers; women from ethnic groups such as Roma; LBT women and women with a disability.

The review of progress across Europe undertaken in the context of Beijing+20 referred to ‘the existence of a wide gap between legislation and its implementation in all areas of the Beijing Platform for Action’.[8]

Accordingly, the ongoing work of the Council of Europe in the field of gender equality remains critical to the support of its own member states, but it also remains important because the Council of Europe’s work on gender equality, including its conventions and its tools, have become reference points for other regional and international organisations.

Among those tools are the standards and mechanisms and the Committee of Ministers’ Recommendations which have underpinned the work of the Organisation in proactively addressing the priorities in its Gender Equality Strategy. The Tallinn Conference has critically reviewed progress on each priority.

Combating gender stereotypes and sexism

Under cover of a culture, a tradition or even a joke, too often women are victims of sexism and sexist hate speech which feeds into and is at the origin of violence against women. We need to speak out against sexism and sexist hate speech and we need to use all the tools available at the Council of Europe.

Snežana Samardžić-Marković

Director General of Democracy, Council of Europe

The Strategy defines gender stereotyping as ‘preconceived ideas whereby males and females are arbitrarily assigned characteristics and roles determined and limited by their sex’.

Since its inception, the GEC has overseen a number of significant initiatives to advance understanding of gender stereotypes, including two conferences on the themes of ‘Media and the Image of Women’ (Amsterdam, 2013) and ‘Combating Gender Stereotypes in and through Education’ (Helsinki, 2014). In addition, it has overseen the preparation of a number of publications,[9] aimed, inter alia at the media and at policy makers.

In parallel, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) adopted a General Policy Recommendation on combating hate speech,[10] including on the basis of sex, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation. The Secretariat jointly organised a seminar for young people on Combating Sexist Hate Speech, prepared information papers on this topic, and is currently working with the GEC on the preparation of a draft recommendation for consideration by the Committee of Ministers to combat sexism.

The Helsinki Conference,[11] which focused on education and stereotypes, found that ‘gender stereotyping places unhealthy demands on both sexes which inhibit their natural talents and interests from developing, and consequently limit economic progress and prevent social cohesion. Gender stereotyping is transmitted to children from babyhood; by parents, social networks, early learning experiences and by media.’[12] The Conference concluded that ‘societies remain strongly gender stereotyped and that the education system, which is a subsystem of the societies they serve, reproduce the values and culture of those societies without challenging their possible limitations on the life opportunities and experiences of their pupils’.[13] The Helsinki Conference made comprehensive recommendations of relevance.[14]

Speakers and participants discussed evidence about ongoing challenges in relation to women’s role, engagement, depiction and vulnerability in the media, in all its forms.[15] While many media organisations have devised gender equality strategies, few are implemented or monitored. Women are still under-represented in senior positions within media organisations and as news reporters. Women reporters are more likely to deal with social affairs issues rather than with politics, economics or technology. This lack of a female presence impacts on media content. Efforts to identify women journalists as media commentators has been driven more by women’s groups than by the media sector itself and has therefore not been very successful. Freedom of expression is a fundamental freedom, but it is not an absolute right. It is linked to other human rights, which it may not cancel and endanger, such as the rights to life, dignity, safety or privacy[16]. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled on various cases concerning the violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights[17]. At the international level, Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights clearly expresses the need for responsibility in the exercise of the right to expression. Contemporary media is driven by falling advertising revenue, media concentration, media competition and the search for sensationalism. Awareness raising and training on gender issues are therefore essential. A sustained commitment from news media managements to foster women’s presence in the media is imperative to bring the change that is essential to address both women’s presence and discussion of gender equality in the media.

Sexism, sexist hate speech and sexist behaviour still prevail in the media. Published in 2014, the IWFM/INSI study on women in journalism[18] showed that almost half of survey respondents said they suffered sexual harassment in different forms, with the majority of attacks being perpetrated by supervisors or colleagues. The study concludes that most of these abuses go unreported because of fear of reprisals: loss of job, loss of freedom, and in some cases, threats against and loss of life.

Female journalists are also more likely to experience online sexism and hate speech. This can take a number of forms, including online impersonation where cyber abusers produce false media content to discredit and insults, threats and harassment through emails and social media. There is evidence across Europe that online harassment has increased.

Further work by governments, managements and professionals within the media sector is essential to address these deficits in the media, while the important role of education in fostering gender equality was a repeated theme at this Conference.

Preventing and combating violence against women

Violence against women in its different forms, [is now] better addressed by legislation, [but] in practice it continues to remain the most widespread and less punished violation of women’s human rights. The ratification of the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention) by a growing number of countries should accelerate change in this respect.

Lakshmi Puri

Deputy Executive Director, UN Women

The high point of the Council of Europe’s work in recent years on violence against women was the entry into force of the Istanbul Convention[19] on 1 August 2014. This achievement followed a programme of over 105 events working frequently with local partners in 35 countries. By summer 2016, 22 member states have ratified the Istanbul Convention while an additional 20 member states have signed but not yet ratified the Convention, which has received much global acknowledgement as a standard which might be adopted by countries outside Europe. Indeed the EU is working towards its signature and ratification. The quality of the Istanbul Convention as a comprehensive international treaty to address violence against women is also recognised by both the OSCE and the OECD, while UN Women is high in its praise of the Convention.

The Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO)[20] has been established as the independent expert body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Istanbul Convention. It is tasked to evaluate legislative and other measures taken by the states parties to give effect to the provisions of the Convention and to initiate special enquiries if necessary. It has begun its work and has developed its monitoring mechanism. GREVIO’s work will also rely on the contribution of civil society to the monitoring and evaluation process, while it is also recommended that national parliaments engage in monitoring, as foreseen in the Convention.

The Istanbul Convention has led to positive changes in legislation and in the development of strategies in a number of member states, but the Tallinn Conference heard suggestions that there is still scope for the acceleration of measures to ratify the Convention in many member states of the Council of Europe. It also heard that some member states may still not be moving expeditiously to ratification of the Convention.

A number of significant challenges persist in developing policies and actions to address violence against women. The shortage of resources to provide support services persists, while the Convention very specifically identifies the need for both general and specific services for victims of violence. Indeed, a recent negative trend is a focus on “gender-neutral” programmes and services to address violence in some member states. It is therefore essential that specialist and dedicated support services are provided to all women victims of violence.

The prevention of violence against women remains important but is often under-funded as a result of which it can be difficult to monitor and measure outcomes. It is essential to commit resources to prevention, in order to find models that are impactful and feasible in different contexts. In this regard, changing attitudes to violence against women, including through education and awareness-raising, is also important and these should be driven both from the grassroots - civil society, activists and service providers - and from the top, where presidents, prime ministers and governments should take a proactive stance against attitudes which perpetuate violence against women and harmful practices.

In addition, the needs of the ever increasing numbers of women migrants, refugees and asylum seekers requires a gender sensitive response, particularly as resources in countries of first arrival are over-stretched, as a result of which there is a lack of appropriate services and support for survivors of violence in the current refugee crisis.

Guaranteeing Equal Access of Women to Justice

Ensuring access to justice is ensuring access to fair, affordable, accountable and effective remedies in terms of contact with, entry to and use of the legal system.

Sylwia Spurek

Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights of Poland

responsible for equal treatment issues

The Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017 notes that ‘persistent inequalities between women and men, gender bias and gender stereotypes result in unequal access of women and men to justice’.[21] The Strategy therefore aims to gather data and identify the obstacles that women encounter in gaining access to justice, and to identify and disseminate remedies and good practices, which might be replicated to address the deficits.

The GEC has organised a number of research projects, events and other actions to highlight the issue, narrow the data gap and draw together good practices. This work culminated in recommendations from the Bern Conference “Towards Guaranteeing Equal Access of Women to Justice” (October 2015), on the key challenges for the attention of member states; national equality bodies; civil society and lawyers’ associations, and to justice and law enforcement authorities.[22]

Participants at the Tallinn Conference were reminded that equal access to justice implies the right to an effective remedy; the right to a fair trial; the right to equal access to the courts; and the right to legal aid and legal representation. Women continue to face a combination of legal, institutional, socio-economic and cultural barriers in accessing justice.

These barriers also include a lack of awareness of the procedures and a lack of financial resources, coupled with restrictions on the availability of legal aid and other support services needed to meet the reality of women’s lives – including costs for childcare during a legal process. Furthermore, free legal aid regimes rarely if ever list victims of violence against women or discrimination as service qualifiers. While alternative dispute resolution methods, such as mediation, are often favoured as time rich, low cost alternatives to the courts service, often they do not provide women with an accessible fair and empowering process, due to the unequal power positions which prevail in such situations.

Cultural barriers, fear and shame also impact on women’s access to justice, as do discriminatory attitudes and the stereotypical roles of women as carers, men as providers, which still persist in fact as well as in civil and family law in many jurisdictions. These barriers may persist during investigations and trials, especially in cases of gender based violence. Such barriers impact even more on women exposed to multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination and therefore rendered more vulnerable.

Despite the existence of international standards and legislation at UN, Council of Europe and EU levels, there are still challenges including, inter alia the need to ensure access for women to a free legal aid system which takes gender considerations into account; raising awareness among law enforcement officials and the other justice actors to eliminate gender stereotypes; access of NGOs to legal systems; and special measures to address the needs of women exposed to multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination in accessing legal services.

Achieving balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making

The countries which are most successful in achieving gender equality

in political life are those that adopt a holistic approach and design legislation and policies based on a gender perspective in all areas.

Elena Centemero

Chairperson, Committee on Equality and non-Discrimination,

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Based on the premise that pluralist democracy requires balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making, the Council of Europe has actively pursued this goal over many years. It has twice conducted monitoring processes to assess the implementation of Recommendation Rec(2003)3 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making, finding that just 21.1% of places in single/lower houses of parliament were held by women in 2005, while the second monitoring exercised showed an increase to 21.7% in 2008.

In 2016, the GEC launched a third monitoring round, the results of which will be published in 2017. It anticipates that the outcome will also identify gaps in policies and legislation and will compile examples of good practice which will assist member states. The Secretariat and the GEC have also worked actively with other sectors in the Organisation to foster enhanced gender equality in political life.

In 2016, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a Resolution on ‘Assessing the impact of measures to improve women’s political representation’,[23] while the Venice Commission also actively reviews work on the political empowerment of women.[24] The Electoral Assistance Division is also carrying work in this area.

The Rapporteur of the Resolution and its background report, Elena Centemero, Chair of the PACE Committee on Equality and Non-discrimination, presented her key conclusions at the Tallinn Conference. She reminded delegates that the threshold for a balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making has long been a minimum of 40% for both women and men. This goal is coupled in the Assembly with a call for electoral quotas for women as a temporary special measure and as a remedy to the endemic underrepresentation of women.

The research undertaken by the Assembly led to two key conclusions. The first found that progress in the field of women’s representation has been achieved through a variety of measures, including reforms of constitutional legislation (granting women voting rights both to vote or to stand for election) and reforms to civil law, granting women equal access to property, inheritance, marriage citizenship as basic preconditions and then equal rights in public and political life. Secondly, women’s political representation is based on a wide variety of factors: social factors, which affect the sharing of caring and household duties; and economic factors, such as the gender pay gap, the gender gap in access to professions and careers, and access to financing, particularly for economic purposes. However, cultural factors are also crucial: gender stereotypes affect women’s ability to acquire real parity and education and the media have a responsibility to eradicate stereotypes.

The PACE Resolution confirmed that ‘electoral quotas are the most effective means of achieving significant, rapid progress, provided that they are correctly designed and consistently implemented. Quotas should be adapted to the electoral system in force, set ambitious targets and be coupled with stringent sanctions for non-compliance.’ That said, the current minimum goal of 40% for each sex might be regarded as out-dated and, it was suggested that steps should now be taken to set the new goal at parity.

Conclusion

As mentioned previously, the Council of Europe has also adopted a new transversal approach to gender mainstreaming and this was explored in greater detail during a dedicated panel of the Tallinn Conference and is summarised later in this report.

As the preceding paragraphs have shown, the Council of Europe through the GEC, its member states, its own offices and institutions and the new transversal approach, has made great strides in advancing awareness of gender equality and gender mainstreaming across the Organisation and in many of its committees. In addition, the GEC, supported by its secretariat has, over the past five years, organised a range of innovative events, resources and recommendations to bring about real improvements in gender equality. It is now timely to begin the discussion on existing and new priorities.

In addition to the discussion on gender mainstreaming, the Tallinn Conference also reviewed the impact of social media on gender equality. The explosion in social media represents both a challenge and an opportunity for those working in gender equality and the time is now ripe to consider the role of social media in informing future gender equality policy, while also addressing the negative forces which have emerged as new forms of abuse against women.

Sharing knowledge and information to advance the gender equality agenda to implement the Council of Europe Strategy: the impact of social media

The limits between the virtual world and the real world

become narrower and narrower.

Léa Clermont-Dion

Laval University, Canada

It is estimated that there are now over 3.4 billion internet users in the world – over 40% of the global population, while Facebook alone reportedly has more than 1.3 billion users every month. Even in less developed countries, internet penetration approaches 32% of the population.[25] Accordingly, social media offer scope to reach out to the population in a manner quite unimaginable at the turn of the millennium.

Social media play an important role in our lives, particularly when used as originally intended, to share information and expand awareness of a wide range of issues. However, experience now shows that all of the social media are open to abuse and that steps taken to address cyber bullying and the misuse of the media channels have largely proven fruitless to date.

While social media can impact negatively on women’s lives, they also have the capacity to serve as an invaluable tool for raising awareness of gender equality issues. Indeed they have been used to very good effect by, for example, UN Women through the “HeforShe” campaign, bringing strong gender equality messages to a global readership and the “Bring Back our Girls” campaign in Nigeria which highlighted the kidnap and resulted in over 4.5 million tweets globally.

Social media are the primary communications tool for the younger generation and therefore they can be used to reach out very easily to young people with messages to educate and which enhance awareness of gender equality issues. The Tallinn Conference was told that conversations about feminism on Twitter have increased by some 300% in three years and that a surge in younger women bloggers, attracting younger women activists, is helping to foster feminism for a new audience, while also breaking stereotypes.

Social media also have the capacity to reach out to remote and to new communities and, with their universality, can disseminate ideas and campaigns with ease and speed. The Tallinn Conference heard of successful online media campaigns, undertaken in a couple of member states (i.e. Estonia and the Russian Federation). In one instance, anonymous stories of women victims of violence and sexism were gathered and served to raise awareness among victims that they are not alone and that others have coped with and survived such abusive behaviours. However such work was not without its challenges. The creator of this website reported that it also attracted negative and destructive comments and re-posts, which could add to the trauma of those who had contributed.

This response is not atypical, as evidence from a speaker from Slovenia affirmed. She highlighted the negative comments received on her social media site, where ill-informed commentators made the incorrect assumption that all contributors were female, based on the fact that the website was known to have a female management. Efforts by the same website to highlight a lack of a female presence in the national media were met with a backlash, most frequently from combative male critics.

Women journalists are more likely to experience online harassment than their male counterparts. The Conference heard of the work of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media in the area of gender based violence in media, specifically concentrating on online media. Through her Office, recommendations were prepared and published in September 2015. These highlighted the need for various actors to take responsibility to support journalists, including the provision of adequate support to those who experience online abuse. It must be made easier for journalists to report abusive content. People working in the sector must feel that there is somewhere to turn to if they are being harassed online. Such harassment cannot be seen as something ‘not too serious’ as a result of which victims are often left with no support.

The Council of Europe has worked extensively on the issue of freedom of expression in the media and the protection of journalists. Freedom of expression is of course a fundamental freedom. However it cannot be used as an excuse for threatening behaviour and parties to the European Convention on Human Rights also have a responsibility to protect citizens from threatening behaviours. The Council of Europe has also worked on the matter of safety of journalists. These two areas of activity have resulted in the adoption by the Committee of Ministers in April 2016 of two Recommendations on freedom of expression and the internet[26] and on the safety of journalists.[27]

However, freedom of the media cannot be used as a cover for freedom of behaviour. The anonymity offered by cyberspace is one of the great weaknesses of the internet, as is the absence of rules – either legal or moral – to steer acceptable usage. The web is equally open to information pirates, hackers and others who perpetrate intimidating and violent behaviours online with total impunity, in an environment that does not impose sanctions.

Such behaviours can take the form of credible threats of violence against the person or her/his property; harassment, stalking, controlling or coercive behaviour, revenge pornography or blackmail; grossly offensive, indecent or obscene behaviours; and finally hate crime, which may well not be outlawed, even when it is misogynistic.

The promotion of sexist language and hate speech on the internet can bring dire consequences but cannot be easily stamped out. Well-developed and well-intentioned social media sites are easily targeted by behaviours which negate their benefits. This situation is further aggravated by the fact that the internet and cyberspace have become a home for virulent debate based on discriminatory, sexist and/or racist hate speech.

Such behaviours online are not confined to sexism – similar experiences are found in relation to sexual orientation, race, religion and other forms of discrimination. Freedom of expression is often abused as an excuse to cover unacceptable and offensive behaviour.

While there are few concrete data available, there is research which suggests that young girls between 16 and 18 years are most frequently the focus of cyber-violence campaigns. Research from the Pew Institute[28] suggests that young womenaged 18-24 experience certain severe types of online harassment at disproportionately high levels: 26% of these young women have been stalked online, and 25% were the target of online sexual harassment.

At present, legislations appear to have limited or no capacity to prosecute cyber-violent offences across borders while victims have no or limited access to legal recourse to obtain redress. In relation to the issue of responsibility, the Tallinn Conference heard that the case of Delfi v Estonia at the European Court of Human Rights[29] merits consideration. While this case related to defamation rather than to hate speech or violence and to a news portal, its findings might be interpreted to include the dissemination of hate speech and incitement to violence. The Strasbourg Court’s ruling does not create the need for any new law for the internet, but attempts to underline that the internet is not a law-less society, asserting that the laws that apply in the offline world should also apply online.

What the Strasbourg Court found was that there needs to be a system through which those that facilitate the posting of defamatory comments (or it could be other illegal comments and content) have a responsibility for the impact of those comments. As a result of a lack of a clear legal framework, the internet has created a workspace in which people who threaten, harass and violate can roam free because law enforcement measures have not caught up.

It can be argued that it is not necessary to introduce new legislation as legislation against abuse of different kinds already exists. Swift, inexpensive legal and law enforcement processes are required to make the filing of a complaint viable and easy. However the existing legislation may not be applied effectively in the case of cyber-abuse for different reasons. Firstly, addressing and solving online crime against private individuals is not normally a priority for law enforcement services. It can be very difficult in the cyber environment to enforce laws, as activities can move so easily from one jurisdiction to the other; there are various means of anonymous activities; and so on. Another reason is that law enforcement agencies may not sufficiently understand threats and limitations to human rights and may not identify dangers arising from such behaviour.

Online abuse must be dealt with in the broader context of gender based violence, in the same way as it would be dealt with if it were perpetrated in the real or offline world. Police departments across national boundaries need to collaborate more closely to bring perpetrators to justice. Prosecutions must be considered on the basis of both evidence and public interest. There is a need for specialised training and awareness raising for the police and judicial services.

Furthermore, the social media companies still do not adequately recognise or proscribe online behaviours linked to gender–specific violence, including bullying and all the behaviours referred to previously. It is important that such online behaviours are researched and measured in the context of human rights. The idea of responsibility for social media requires a number of actors to play an active part.

Soft law measures such as industry guidelines, codes of ethics and professional rules can offer guidance to service providers, as well as opportunities to deal with the underlying attitudes that lead to unacceptable usage. Education, awareness raising and open discussion can be more beneficial than rules and laws in fostering understanding and addressing prejudices and negative attitudes. Governments can take a more active role to enforce standards on the internet, while the main responsibility for changing behaviours lies with the digital social media companies themselves.

A number of additional issues merit consideration. The first is the need to encourage women to make greater use of the internet to disseminate information and break down stereotypes. The Tallinn Conference heard that “women do not always feel comfortable when conflict breaks out on the internet and work needs to be done to address this lack of confidence in one’s own beliefs; women are not as media savvy as their male counterparts and frequently need further development on the use of social media”.

A second consideration is the need to engage men as active collaborators in creating awareness of gender equality issues, in particular the perpetuation of gender stereotypes and the impact of negative behaviours. This was one of the key purposes of both the “HeforShe” campaign which seeks the support of men and boys as advocates for change in gender equality and the “White Ribbon Campaign” which also seeks the support of men and boys in the campaign to combat violence against women. Men from all walks of life must be encouraged to actively campaign against the misuse of the internet.

The third consideration is one of education in the appropriate use of the internet and the risks attached to behaviours. This is particularly important for younger people, who readily commit every facet of their lives to cyberspace and who are quick to espouse behaviours and actions which can have devastating consequences.

The debate at the Tallinn Conference presented a challenging picture of the internet, a picture where the misuses of social media may appear to outweigh the benefits. However the important benefits of social media in reaching out to foster and create awareness of the benefits of gender equality makes it imperative that the challenges are addressed through collective effort as a matter of urgency.

Recommendations in relation to Social Media[30]

Based on the relevant legal and policy frameworks, as well as the presentations of evidence, good practices and experiences and the subsequent discussion, the Tallinn Conference led to the following recommendations:

To member states

· Actively implement Article 17 of the Istanbul Convention on the participation of the media in the prevention of and combating violence against women in all its forms.

· Foster the use of the internet as a tool to disseminate information on gender equality and to overcome stereotypes and other barriers to de facto gender equality.

· Encourage the use of social media based campaigns to maximise messages to young women and men, girls and boys.

· Ensure that the laws which apply offline in relation to violence against women, harassment, hate speech, incitement, pornography, etc. are also applied to prosecute criminal online behaviours.

· Ensure that victims of abuse on the internet can avail of swift, inexpensive legal and law enforcement processes to make the filing of a complaint viable and easy.

· Establish helplines to support victims.

· Provide training in the negative impacts of illegal internet usage for law enforcement services.

· Encourage transnational activity by law enforcement bodies to address international crimes associated with social media.

· Create awareness that freedom of the media cannot be used as a defence for the misuse of the internet.

· Ensure that journalists, especially female journalists, are not victimised in the course of their work, either by their employers or by the wider public.

· Encourage internet and social media service providers to adopt soft laws such as industry guidelines, codes of ethics and professional rules to govern the usage of the services they provide.

· Actively encourage internet and social media providers to cease online anonymity which fosters unacceptable behaviours and conceals criminal activity.

· Ensure that education curricula are used to create awareness among young people of the misuse of the internet.

· Where relevant and as appropriate, take note and address the gender-related aspects and the need to promote gender equality when implementing the above-listed measures.

To the Council of Europe

· Continue to implement actions including awareness-raising campaigns, the creation of new standards and inter-Committee collaborations to address the negative impacts of misuse of the internet.

· Continue to work with member states on the implementation of the highest standards for the media including social media.

· Continue to collaborate with other multi-lateral bodies to foster the use of the internet to reach out to women and men in less remote parts of Europe and beyond.

· Consider preparing a handbook for the media examining the limitations of engaging Article 10[31] of the European Convention on Human Rights in the context of social media behaviour/abuse.

To the media and to internet and social media service providers

· Develop clear guidelines and rules for potential users on the appropriate use of social media, respecting the human rights and dignity of all potential users.

· Monitor usage of services to ensure that reporting rules and guidelines exist and are enforced, blocking illegal, dangerous and defamatory postings at the earliest opportunity.

· Foster awareness of the appropriate use of the internet and social media, particularly but not exclusively for young people.

· Ensure that management and journalists actively promote an equality ethos, including gender equality.

· Protect journalists from discrimination, hate mail and online abuse.

To national equality bodies

· Make active use of the internet to advance the goals of gender equality, reaching out in particular to young people and to men as advocates for change.

· Make active use of the internet to create awareness of the impact of discriminatory behaviours, online and offline, reaching out in particular to young people.

Gender Matters: Gender mainstreaming in international organisations – best practices and impact on national policies and strategies

Governments and other actors should promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes, so that, before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively.

UN Beijing Platform for Action 1995

Introduction

With the recommendation quoted above repeated throughout the Beijing Platform for Action, the Fourth UN World Conference on Women gave voice to the concept of gender mainstreaming as a tool to promote gender equality through the evaluation of the impact of all policies on women and on men. In the subsequent 20 years, the successful implementation of gender mainstreaming is far from universal, either globally or in Europe. This is confirmed in both the report of the UN Secretary General to CSW59[32] and the UNECE Report on the implementation of Beijing in Europe.[33]

That said, key international institutions, such as the Council of Europe and the UN, have now taken concrete actions at the highest levels to reactivate gender mainstreaming as a tool to foster gender equality in policy making within their organisations. Evidence of progress in these two bodies should serve as a role model to encourage governments and international institutions to take stronger measures to mainstream gender in all their policy making.

Following the adoption of ‘Beijing’, the implementation of gender mainstreaming opened a mix of debate and actions without conclusive outcomes or significant progress. Governments struggled with the mandate, while certain elements of civil society and the feminist movement were sceptical about the ability of patriarchal institutions to serve as an ally for feminism,[34] a scepticism which increased in the early years of the new millennium. There is evidence that gender mainstreaming policies were often developed but seldom were they implemented. Furthermore the aim of integrating a gender equality dimension into policies led to the misapprehension that gender equality was a cure for all global issues.

On the other hand, many researchers saw gender mainstreaming as a potentially transformative strategy. The co-option of feminism by the state created a widespread agreement that gender equality persists as a problem and the insertion of gender issues into spheres of government has made it possible for feminist voices to be heard. This has created positives in addressing the challenges of gender inequality. As an example, an increasing number of international institutions have embraced gender mainstreaming – UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), World Bank and International Telecommunications Union, among others – showing evidence of a clear and welcome move away from the ‘softer’ sectors such as the gender mainstreaming of health and education, into the economic and technological sectors.

A further advantage which has emerged is the development of a pool of experts whose range of expertise links gender and one or more other fields. This enables these experts to more easily serve as advocates for gender and support institutional processes. The development of such expertise also facilitates the enhanced engagement of men as advocates for gender equality. A new understanding of gender equality issues has given the World Bank a transformative understanding of the impact of market forces on women. Similarly, the UN Security Council Resolution No. 1325 has forced reluctant governments to respond to a feminist perspective, thereby protecting women in times of conflict and facilitating their participation in peace building.

The keynote speaker on this topic at the Tallinn Conference concluded that‘gender mainstreaming makes gender a topic to be argued about in the many forums of government and international politics. The outcome of these arguments cannot be administratively preordained. It will need activists both inside and outside government to carry the torch for what is still a radical idea – the idea of gender equality.’[35]

Mainstreaming gender in and through the Council of Europe

The Council of Europe’s engagement with the challenges of de facto gender equality started in the 1980s. The Standing Committee on Equality between Women and Men (CDEG) began work on gender mainstreaming after Beijing and five specific Committee of Ministers’ Recommendations on gender mainstreaming topics have been adopted by the Committee of Ministers since 1998.[36]

The Council of Europe was instrumental in developing the concept of gender mainstreaming from the 1990’s onwards, including its conceptual framework and methodology. Furthermore the Council of Europe’s Standards and Mechanisms, published in 2007,[37]notes that gender mainstreaming is one of a number of complementary approaches required to achieve de facto gender equality.[38]It defines mainstreaming as ‘the adoption of methodologies for the implementation of the gender mainstreaming strategy, including gender budgeting, gender-based analysis/gender impact assessment, cross-checking where necessary gender- or sex-related data with statistics on socio-economic or other relevant personal circumstances’.[39]

As mentioned previously, the Council of Europe has adopted a new approach[40] to advance gender equality which included a commitment to introduce a new Transversal Programme to mainstream gender equality in all of the Organisation’s work. This has been achieved through the appointment of more than 40 Gender Equality Rapporteurs (GERs), in the Organisation’s intergovernmental and institutional bodies, which has led to co-ordinated and sustained efforts to introduce a gender equality perspective in all policies and at all levels of the Council of Europe. The setting up of an intra-secretariat Gender Mainstreaming Team[41] has also contributed to the spread of gender mainstreaming throughout the organisation.

This work has been supported by a manual for GERs; training sessions; policy briefs; factsheets; the Gender Equality website and other resources. Progress is reported annually to the Committee of Ministers.

A number of good practice examples have already emerged from these initiatives. These include ensuring the protection of women in the 2016 Committee of Ministers’ ‘Recommendation on journalism and the safety of journalists’; work by the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) on the gender dimension of corruption; by the Co-operation Group to Combat Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs (Pompidou Group) on the gender dimension of non-medical use of prescription drugs; by the European Cinema Support Fund (EURIMAGES) in relation to data collection, and the development of a EURIMAGES gender equality strategy in 2015; and by the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS)[42] on the development of gender equality indicators in sport, following the adoption of Recommendation CM/Rec(2015)2 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming in sport.

The CDEG, the predecessor to the GEC, oversaw significant work in relation to gender budgeting, including the preparation of a handbook, which serves as a guide for the implementation of gender budgeting. The Beijing+20 review documents showed evidence of a growing practice of gender analysis of member state budgets.

However, one of the key challenges is to ensure that any policy analysis is neither gender neutral nor gender blind. The former is found all too frequently in analysis. Furthermore many policy makers remain resistant to the process of gender mainstreaming.

Based on its work to date, the Council of Europe has concluded that the key aim of gender mainstreaming is to ground new and existing policies on the concrete situation of women and men and on the specific needs of the target populations. This results in better informed policy making and better government. One of the key factors for success is a policy of involving everyone – all relevant actors – in the process. It must be underpinned by the availability of gender disaggregated data and training of all participants to ensure that they are gender aware and skilled, equipped with the necessary competences and committed to gender equality.

Some of the main challenges identified by the Council of Europe are the need to involve the relevant actors involved in policy-making so that gender mainstreaming takes places in all policies and measures; the lack or shortage of relevant data disaggregated by sex in many policy areas; the need for training on gender mainstreaming and gender analysis; and the limited human and financial resources available for this work.

The Council of Europe recommends ongoing work to build on successes and tackle challenges to gender mainstreaming. The challenges fall into two categories – general challenges, which include budgetary cuts and the weakening of national gender equality mechanisms, together with political opposition in some countries; and specific challenges, which including the lack of willingness of some sectors to engage; scarcity of resources and expertise and the need to focus more on methodologies.

Mainstreaming gender in and through the United Nations and UN Women

As the driving force behind gender mainstreaming, UN Women fulfils a dual role both in monitoring its implementation by parties to Beijing and in leading the UN process within its institutions and agencies.

UN Women reports a significant increase in political will and commitment to gender mainstreaming and actively makes supports available to governments in the form of assistance in preparing national strategies, coupled with training, capacity development and practical resources. UN Women also supports civil society to play critical advocacy roles on gender mainstreaming. It also makes important efforts to involve more men and boys in gender equality initiatives, especially at the national level.

UN Women concurs with the Council of Europe in finding challenges to gender mainstreaming, noting in particular that it is seen as too complex and not easily understood by policy makers and practitioners. It finds that the full implementation of gender mainstreaming has been marred by a lack of sustained procedures and practices; leadership; financial and human resources; and accountability structures.

Across the UN system, UN Women has been mandated since 2012 to lead on gender equality and women’s empowerment within the broader UN family. A System-wide Action Plan for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-SWAP) serves as a unified accountability framework aimed at accelerating gender mainstreaming across the UN system. It contains 15 minimum performance standards to which all entities must aspire and adhere by 2017. As with the Council of Europe, performance in the UN is reported annually and gender mainstreaming is now acknowledged as everyone’s responsibility across the whole organisation.

One of the key outcomes of this new approach within the UN system has been the incorporation of gender equality targets across eleven of the 17 goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, showing that gender has truly been mainstreamed within the UN system.

UN Women shares many of the concerns of the Council of Europe in relation to progress on gender mainstreaming, including the need for political commitment and financial support. UN Women considers that enhanced co-operation of international/intergovernmental organisations is critical to promote a whole of government/whole of society approach. Evaluation of the outcomes of gender mainstreaming initiatives is also important to determine whether the desired outcomes are actually being achieved. UN Women also actively supports gender responsive budgeting and encourages all governments to implement it more thoroughly.

UN Womenstressed the increasingly critical importance of gender mainstreaming for implementing existing and new normative commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by 2030. UN Women is mandated to support member states and the UN system with gender mainstreaming efforts, and to strengthen coherence, co-ordination and accountability for the work on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

One of its main outcomes has been increased coherence and networking. It has also diffused responsibility for gender mainstreaming within agencies and for all staff. UN Women is co-ordinating the next phase of the UN-SWAP, which will begin in 2018. This next phase will support the overall achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals through a stronger focus on accountability for including gender results in each entity’s SDG-related strategic, planning and reporting processes and documents.

Mainstreaming gender in other international institutions

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) adopted an action plan for gender equality in 2004. It sets goals to be achieved within OSCE Secretariat and requires states to bear responsibility for the overarching commitments on gender equality. Again, annual reporting on progress is a key element. However, agreement on the priorities between the member states can be a challenge. Nevertheless, ministerial council decisions have been taken on a number of gender issues, including violence against women; women’s economic empowerment; and women, peace and security.

One of the key challenges identified by OSCE is bridging the gap between commitments and actual implementation at national and local levels. This is where OSCE turns to gender mainstreaming within the organisations, as a methodology to work in tandem with awareness raising, tools and resources. Such an approach was found to be particularly beneficial in developing actions plans for UNSCR 1325. Again international collaboration is central to the work of OSCE, which works closely with the Council of Europe across a wide range of activities linked to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

The World Bank is also active in fostering gender mainstreaming. It has been very active in relation to gender equality for many years, recognising that gender equality and the empowerment of women are prerequisites for economic growth and prosperity. The International Development Association (IDA) within the World Bank focuses in particular on the advancement of women in the least developed parts of the globe, supporting land titles for women; education of girls and the provision of microfinance to support small scale entrepreneurship, in order to alleviate poverty and stimulate growth.

In December 2015, the World Bank published a new Gender Equality Strategy[43] which looks critically at the challenges of gender mainstreaming and then commits to strengthen the process in its future work. Specifically the new World Bank Strategy identifies the same challenges as were also identified by the Council of Europe and UN Women in relation to a sustained commitment, inadequate resources and also mentions that the concepts were frequently misunderstood.[44]The World Bank continues to support gender mainstreaming as a tool and lays out a commitment to implement it in a new methodology particularly in the work of the IDA.[45]

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is a decentralised agency of the EU and fulfils a role which differs somewhat from the roles of the other international bodies at the Tallinn Conference. EIGE is largely a research body which is also tasked, inter alia to develop tools and resources to foster the work of the EU Institutions and the EU member states in relation to gender equality.

Gender mainstreaming has been a key focus of the work of EIGE. It has undertaken considerable research and developed numerous resources to help EU member states to mainstream gender. The most recent tool developed by EIGE is the Gender Mainstreaming Platform, which was launched in June 2016. This Platform[46] offers an abundance of resources including definitions, methodologies, tools, information and guidance in relation to the mainstreaming of gender across 22 sectors.

In addition, the European Commission’s Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality (2016-2019) continues its focus on gender mainstreaming by incorporating gender equality considerations in impact assessments and evaluations of EU laws and policies. The Inter-Service Group on equality between women and men (in which all Commission departments are represented) continues to monitor and steer the integration of a gender equality perspective in policy, legal and spending programme activities, including budgetary matters, across all EU policy areas. A report on gender mainstreaming is foreseen for 2017, covering gender equality in sectoral polices such as transport, energy, education, health, taxation, agriculture, trade, regional policy, maritime affairs and the environment.

Tools for enhancing gender mainstreaming – from political will to e-solutions

A second panel at the Tallinn Conference presented examples from Council of Europe member states of good practices in mainstreaming gender.

An overview of experiences in EU member states

A review of experiences across the EU member states[47] identified four distinct phases to a gender mainstreaming strategy:

· the mandate – when the strategy is adopted;

· the tools and methods – when instruments are developed to facilitate its implementation;

· the outcomes – when gender mainstreaming affects the measures and routines of the different policy sectors; and finally

· the impact on society.

The review found that most EU member states have developed the mandate phase, passing laws and developing programmes to foster gender equality as a transversal goal. The equality mechanisms have also been developed to include mainstreaming as part of its core tasks but also to include the resources required to support special actions. A wide range of the tools required for gender mainstreaming have also been developed, if on a piecemeal basis across member states. Sex-disaggregated data, training and research on gender issues are found in most EU member states. However, more complex tools such as gender impact assessment and gender budgeting are much less developed and therefore less frequently used as a matter of course across many EU member states.

Despite these developments, it was pointed out that gender mainstreaming is still not an integral part of the policy making progress in EU member states and therefore the impact of gender mainstreaming on policy outcomes is limited.

The Conference then heard about experiences in a number of individual Council of Europe member states.

Sweden

Much of the ground-breaking work on the implementation of gender mainstreaming has been done in the Nordic countries.

A new initiative in Sweden requires 60 of its state agencies to mainstream gender over the period 2013 to 2018. This work is supported by a small team of just six persons. The approach they have adopted is to interact with the management boards of the different agencies because unless the management board engages with the process, evidence shows that it will not be a success. Training and guidance on the development of a gender mainstreaming plan has been provided to the agencies. The agencies can also participate in networking opportunities that enable them to learn from each other and to share good practices.

Despite being a front runner in the development of gender mainstreaming, Sweden also finds many shortcomings in its implementation. Conclusions drawn from these can be used to inform future work, both in Sweden and in other member states. The first weakness identified is the tendency to set up gender mainstreaming as a time bound, short term project. For it to be successful it must not be regarded as a project and it should be acknowledged that its work is never completed. It must be implemented as an established part of an ongoing decision-making process. Secondly, and affirming the view of the international institutions, gender mainstreaming is not a goal but a strategy. Thirdly, gender mainstreaming is too often ‘sold’ as a natural or normal element of policy making that anyone can do, but this approach tends to send out misleading signals. Gender analyses are required to address the inequalities in society that the agencies are to solve, and these analyses require specific expertise and knowledge.

The support structure works on two levels: one at the agency level; and the other at central government level. When the central government sets out the specific gender quality issues to be addressed by their respective agencies, it strengthens the focus and approach of the work of the agencies. An ongoing dialogue between the agencies, the ministries and ministers also contributes to the development regarding the definition of gender mainstreaming.

As of 2016, there is an additional initiative regarding the 33 state universities, with a similar support structure in place, which will run up until the end of 2019

Estonia

Estonia has engaged actively with the mainstreaming of gender in its labour laws, driven by its Ministry for Social Affairs. The Estonian authorities found that their labour laws are focused in their content on a society of middle aged male workers (seen as the productive sector) and take little heed of the needs of women workers who might be part of and need to combine activity in both the productive and the reproductive sectors. Women are still constrained by low maternity pay, impacting on the gender pay gap and by discrimination in the work place. Men who avail of parental leave to assist with raising families also experience discrimination in the work place. A new booklet identifies clearly the rights of parents, male and female, in the workplace and is intended to break down barriers and stereotypes.

Albania

Following the introduction of programme budgeting in 2008, Albania received support from UN Women in 2010 to introduce gender responsive budgeting into its medium term budget programme. The support took the form of meetings, training, the presentation of good practices and study tours for senior officials to strengthen their capacity to use gender budgeting in practice. Following a pilot project, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, supported by UN Women, collaborated in the preparation of detailed procedures for the implementation of gender responsive budgeting in sectoral ministries. With the provision of technical assistance, gender responsive budgeting was implemented in 20 government programmes. Arrangements are now being made to formalise this process in law. As with any new procedures, there are still some challenges to be addressed. These include an expanded awareness of the process across all government departments; the need for enhanced statistical data; the need to make drafting teams more inclusive of those involved in service delivery; and the need for a stronger legal framework and a manual on the whole process.

France

The need to treat gender mainstreaming as a long term issue was highlighted based on the experience in France. In 2012, an explicit political commitment was made to make gender mainstreaming systemic. This was a goal fostered by a reenergised feminist movement and a well-resourced civil society movement during the presidential campaign. Following the election, the goal was activated at the highest levels through a series of measures which included the appointment of both a gender balanced government and a Minister for Women’s Rights, and the establishment of an independent national advisory body – the High Council for Gender Equality. This institution has already prepared more than 20 reports including research and recommendations for government ministries. The purpose of the new approach was to make gender equality a central issue rather than a peripheral issue in ministries. An inter-ministerial committee for women’s rights and equality, led by the Prime Minister was reactivated and new gender focal points were identified in each ministry, and tasked to prepare and report on roadmaps for gender equality in each ministry, resulting in a comprehensive and easily understandable progress report in 2014. This followed the Swedish policy model and served to inform and engage ministers at the highest levels.

However, four years later, France too has found blockages to the success of the model, principally because human and financial resources were not adequate to drive and evaluate the outcomes of the process. There were also delays in the delivery of training. Without a significant dedicated budget, it has not been possible to meet all the requirements of gender mainstreaming and to move from the legal base to reality. In addition, other political priorities have overtaken the gender debate, while the broad understanding of the benefits and processes of gender mainstreaming is still regarded as unclear and inefficient, despite all the work on awareness raising and training.

Iceland

As another Nordic country and exemplar of good practice, Iceland actively engages in gender budgeting, holding the view that it offers an opportunity to link justice and fairness with economic well-being. This is based on the belief that economic well-being depends on gender equality. A first attempt at gender budgeting in 2005 did not meet with success and the process was restarted in 2009. This renewed effort began with the collection of data and information and with the appointment of a steering committee from all the ministries and of an overall project manager. In the early years, 17 pilot projects were undertaken and found to increase knowledge of gender budgeting and some resulted in changed processes. The findings of the pilot projects were then mainstreamed by tasking each government department to implement gender budgeting in one of their key policy areas.

This has led to a new phase, whereby gender budgeting is integrated into all decision-making processes. The focus is now on analysis of the gender perspective before decisions are made. The new plan includes challenging targets: in budget proposals, the plan is to progress from 0% in 2015 to 100% in 2020, while, in all proposed bills, the plan is to go from 0% in 2014 to 100% in 2019. The implementation model in Iceland is very close to that of both France and Sweden – a cross-ministerial approach; political commitment at the highest levels and steering committees were also essential for success in Iceland. Some of the challenges identified include the link to feminism which is interpreted negatively and an overall opposition to change.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The presentations and subsequent discussion at the Tallinn Conference indicated an ongoing commitment on the part of both the international institutions and the Council of Europe member states’ representatives to gender mainstreaming as a tool to foster de facto gender equality. They also highlighted the ongoing challenges. Much of the evidence to date shows that few member states have adopted a cross-government approach to the mainstreaming of gender. In working to mainstream gender, governments and their gender equality mechanisms have largely tended to focus on social sectors and other limited approaches.

The new commitment made by both the Council of Europe and the UN to mainstream gender across the two bodies brings a fresh impetus to the process. Early results from the international institutions are very encouraging and can serve as a model to be espoused by member states. Among the key factors essential for the successful implementation of gender mainstreaming are both commitment at the highest political and administrative levels and a transversal approach. On the basis of this experience governments must again be encouraged to recognise the advantages of mainstreaming gender as an essential but basic element of policy making.

A range of tools has been developed to assist member states and their equality mechanisms in implementing gender mainstreaming. These include the excellent handbook on gender budgeting prepared by the Council of Europe[48] while EIGE has recently published an online platform[49] of gender mainstreaming resources to support member states.

Recommendations on gender mainstreaming

To member states

· Reenergise the process of mainstreaming gender through gender-focused policy making, gender impact assessment and gender budgeting in policy making across all sectors of government;

· If not already in place, establish a transversal, all-government committee to oversee the planning, implementation and evaluation of gender mainstreaming across all public policies and enabling legislation;

· Ensure the replication of this process in each ministry and government agency as an ongoing strategy;

· Ensure that all the necessary resources such as personnel, adequate financial provision and gender disaggregated statistical data are readily available to facilitate gender mainstreaming across all sectors of government; and

· Ensure the provision of training to all public policy makers to ensure that they are fully aware of the benefits of gender equality and the methodologies for incorporating gender mainstreaming in all its forms into public policy making.

To the Council of Europe

· Continue to implement gender mainstreaming as a transversal programme within all bodies of the Council of Europe.

· Use all possible opportunities to foster external awareness of the work of the Council of Europe in fostering gender mainstreaming in order to serve as a model to encourage governments and other international institutions to follow its example.

To national equality mechanisms

· Continue to engage and work with governments and standard setting organisations such as UN Women, Council of Europe and the European Union to ensure the implementation of gender mainstreaming as a key element of national gender equality policies.

The Way Forward: Next steps in the Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy

No country in the world has achieved full gender

equality – it remains a challenge for us all.

Marina Kaljurand

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Estonia

Introduction

One of the key goals of the 2016 Gender Equality Conference organised by the GEC in partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia was to review progress in the implementation of the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017, its impact to date and especially to open discussion on the formulation of the next Council of Europe strategy.

The significant progress made in relation to each objective of the Strategy has been outlined in earlier sections of this Report. Mention was also made about the many challenges which still persist. The GEC and the Secretariat have delivered an impressive work programme since the GEC was established. Previous GEC conferences have addressed issues relating to gender equality and the media, access to justice and education. The present Conference offered opportunities for detailed discussion on two key elements of gender equality - social media, as an emerging issue; and gender mainstreaming, as a long term strategy, which has still to be fully implemented, despite the commitments made in Beijing.

The Conference also heard about progress in mainstreaming gender equality across the different sectors of the Council of Europe, and of the collaborations between the Secretariat and other Committees of the Council, in order to strengthen the focus on gender equality issues.

Working in partnership

The Tallinn Conference took a global collaborative approach to the challenge of gender equality, thanks to extensive inputs from external collaborators. These included UN Women, the European Commission, OSCE and the World Bank; all of which have active programmes to foster gender equality.

The Council of Europe, the institutions of the EU and UN Women have dual roles in relation to gender equality in that they are creators of both de jure and de facto approaches to gender equality. The work of each of these three groups of bodies in the field of gender equality is underpinned by legal obligations, be it national or international legislation and international conventions and agreements signed and/or ratified by member countries. These legal obligations are complemented by programmes of positive actions which serve to provide de facto gender equality and services which will support women in all the complex areas that come together to ensure true gender equality.

Such inter-institutional collaborations are essential in the current atmosphere of scarce resources to ensure complementarity rather than duplication of effort. Every European country, every public administration, every international institution has found it necessary in recent years to achieve significant savings to address budgetary challenges. The new mantra is “to do more with less”. This has, on occasion, led to reductions in the level of funding available for national gender equality mechanisms and has required policy makers in all corners of Europe to re-evaluate all their services to optimise and maximise outputs. This is not without merit. It serves to reopen debates and refresh thinking. It becomes necessary to identify benefits and to find new ways of working cleverly to reach the same goals.

The Tallinn Conference also heard contributions on behalf of the non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) working in the sector. The Council of Europe offers a unique role to NGOs through its Conference of INGOs which contributes actively to the work of the Council, including its work on gender equality. The important role played by NGOs internationally in ensuring that national parliaments are briefed and engaged in gender equality was highlighted during the Conference.

In developing its first Gender Equality Strategy, the GEC was asked specifically to look at the implementation by member states of the quite comprehensive ‘Standards and Mechanisms’[50] for gender equality, which had been developed by the CDEG[51] and published in 2007. It was also tasked to look at other priority areas within the Council of Europe where the GEC could bring complementarity. This led to the identification of the five priority areas for the first Strategy; four[52] of which build on the existing ‘Standards and Mechanisms’, while the fifth relates to the high priority area of the Council of Europe on “Guaranteeing equal access of women to justice”.

Developing a new strategy

The strategic planning process must be based on an evaluation of the existing Strategy; the availability of resources, both financial and human; changes to and newly emerging priorities, both within the Gender Equality sector and the broader Council of Europe; and changes in the external operating environment. In light of the scarce resources that prevail, there is no option but to look at each existing priority under the Gender Equality Strategy in order to determine:

· Progress and achievements to date;

· The added value to be achieved by continuing to work on that priority;

· The extent to which the goals of that priority link with the key goals of the Council of Europe and the needs of its member states;

· Whether there is duplication of the work of other organisations;

· Whether the onus is now on member states to take the work forward, with the possibility of its being monitored by the GEC; and

· Whether less time/fewer resources could now be dedicated to that priority, at least for a period of time.

In tandem with its review of its own goals and those of the Council of Europe, the GEC must also look at the external operating environment to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for it to change its key priority areas of operation within the next strategic planning period and/or to alter the focus of existing priorities. It may also look at its working methodologies in this regard. If the present Strategy has been successful, it is likely that the new strategy may well be reshaped to review present priorities and consider adding one or more new priorities. The GEC can then monitor progress on those excluded priorities in order to establish their status in any future Strategic period.

Changes in the Operating Environment

Presentations to the Tallinn Conference highlighted a number of key external issues which merit consideration by the GEC when it formulates its new Strategy.

Migration

The proper handling of migration is probably the most challenging issue for Europe at present. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) statistics[53] show an increase of over 1.3 million (43%) in the number of refugees in Europe during 2015. Statistics from Eurostat show that the number of asylum seekers presenting in the EU for the first time has trebled since 2013.[54]

While the gender of the migrants has until now been skewed towards men, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees commented at an International Women’s Day event in March 2016 at the European Parliament that ‘in 2016 to date, 138,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Southern Europe. In public opinion, the image is often that of young single men arriving in Europe to look for work. Today, on International Women’s Day, I wish to report instead that nearly two-thirds [of that number] are women and children, up from last year’s 41 per cent’.[55] It is noteworthy that women represented only 28% of those who sought asylum in the EU in 2015,[56] particularly as this highlights the issue of family separation.

The European Commissioner on Human Rights also addressed the issue of women in migration and the asylum process in his 8 March 2016 communiqué.[57] In a wide ranging address he summarised the many challenges experienced by women in this scenario, making particular reference to issues for migrants which link to two of the priorities within the Council of Europe’s current Gender Equality Strategy – violence against women and the access of women migrants to justice.

In looking at any future work on women and migration, the GEC might also consider the outcomes of the consultative work done previously by the CDEG which identified many of the challenges experienced by migrant women, including economic migrants, as they tried to integrate into new environments.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Mention has already been made in this report of the inclusion of a specific goal for gender equality (SDG 5) in the new UN 2030 Agenda and the incorporation of a gender perspective into a significant number of other goals. Europe as a whole can, and must, serve as a role model in espousing policies which will ensure gender equality in its member states and the incorporation of a gender equality perspective into their development and humanitarian work. Many of the targets incorporated into SDG 5 link closely with the existing priorities of the Council of Europe’s Gender Equality Strategy and to the broader work of the Organisation, through its conventions on anti-trafficking and on combating violence against women. SDG 5 calls, inter alia on member states to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls; to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls; end harmful practices; ensure women’s roles in leadership; ensure women’s access to economic resources; and use technology to promote the empowerment of women.

To underpin the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, UN Women is working to generate comprehensive data on gender equality and women’s empowerment, including statistics, indicators and monitoring frameworks. In preparing its own monitoring work, the GEC should consider work which also meets the needs of UN Women.

Collaboration

Each of the international bodies working to foster gender equality and women’s economic empowerment brings a unique perspective to its work. However, there are many common areas of interest where collaboration will enhance the outcomes, while in other areas, duplication of effort should be avoided, particularly as they are wasteful of scarce financial and human resources. The Council of Europe added value is grounded in its human rights-based approach, including the vast legal and policy acquis on gender equality that the Organisation has built up over the years. They are at the disposal of the European Union, United Nations and other international organisations so that they can build on them or take inspiration, as appropriate. The Istanbul Convention, which is considered as a reference standard to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence, is a case in point.

The United Nations Statistical Commission has also undertaken work to identify indicators for both Gender Equality and for Violence against Women, and therefore it makes sense to build on this work rather than start from scratch in Council of Europe member states.

At the Tallinn Conference, the Deputy Executive Director of UN Women specifically invited the European countries to assist in the development of the indicators necessary to measure the implementation of SDG 5.

She also commented very positively on the Istanbul Convention, calling for it to be universalised to prevent violence, protect women across the globe from violence, to ensure the provision of adequate services and to prosecute perpetrators, another example of possible collaboration, which might be further considered/developed under the new Council of Europe strategy.

All of the materials prepared by the EU institutions can be readily accessed by those countries who are not EU members, and indeed a number of Council of Europe members have expressed interest in replicating the work of the EIGE, including for example the Gender Equality Index.

The Way Forward: identifying the priorities to be included

Speakers in Tallinn suggested that the new strategy should be very targeted and specific, both ambitious and flexible enough to respond to emerging issues and support the work of member states on the ground. The NGO sector called specifically for an action plan to implement the Strategy and suggested the creation of a suite of indicators to measure progress.

A number of themes emerged from the discussion – the need to consider migration in the new strategy; the role of social media, both good and problematic; the need to create awareness of gender equality issues in the younger generation, particularly issues such as the negative impact of bullying and other abuses of social media and the unacceptability of violence against women.

The previous Strategy contained five priorities and four or five key priorities seem to be a suitable number to maintain for the next strategy. Accordingly it becomes necessary to evaluate each existing priority in accordance with the framework developed previously – achievements, added value, etc.

In addressing the new issues mentioned above, it is important to consider whether these should become stand-alone priorities or whether they are elements of one or more of the existing priorities. One cannot lose sight of the issue of resources. The Council of Europe’s budget dedicated to gender equality is small, but, thankfully, its impact to date has been disproportionate to its size. Therefore the GEC must continue to work cleverly to maximise outputs by ensuring that it only adopts priorities on which it can make a significant input.

While it might appear appropriate to work on addressing the many issues facing migrant women, this is a hugely complex area and one which, in its totality, is far too large to be addressed by the GEC alone. However, the GEC could consider in particular the special challenges associated with migrant women as victims of violence, including domestic and other forms of violence against women in areas of conflict and could work to raise awareness of the tenets of the Istanbul Convention among those providing services for asylum seekers, refugees and migrant women. This would link work on migrants with work on the implementation of the Istanbul Convention and with the violence against women priority in the forthcoming strategy.

A further priority, aspects of which relate to migrant women and women seeking asylum/refugees, is women’s access to justice. Bearing in mind the comments of the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights in March this year, future work on ‘Women’s Access to Justice’ might include a focus on access for migrants and asylum seekers. In the same context, the Commissioner also highlighted the needs of women from Roma communities and women with a disability who also experience difficulty in accessing services to report violent crimes against them. This also merits consideration as a topic to be addressed under the new strategy.

Such work would also bring an inter-sectional perspective to the work of the GEC and the new strategy. Consideration might be given to having a stand-alone priority to address inter-sectional issues which affect so many women. This group includes, among others, Roma women; women from ethnic minorities; women with a disability; LBT women; migrant women; older women; women experiencing poverty. The selection of a stand-alone priority would be an innovative approach but it would replicate the innovation which has been so successful in mainstreaming gender across the Organisation. Indeed preparatory work undertaken on the next strategy might well lead to the mainstreaming of the needs of women with intersectional issues across the Council of Europe in the future.

One of the key strengths of the Council of Europe is its capacity to raise awareness and reach out to a wide audience. The first priority under the Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017 is “Combating gender stereotypes and sexism”. Gender stereotypes persist at all levels in society, despite the combined work of the UN, the EU and the Council of Europe. All three bodies hold the view that the elimination of stereotypes is central to the achievement of de facto gender equality.

Accordingly, it is essential that the new strategy continues to focus on the issues of stereotypes and sexism. It may be that new tools might be developed to reach out to young people but much of the key to the advancement of women into leadership roles lies with senior male decision-makers. As there are common areas of interest here, it may well be that a collaboration between the Council of Europe and other regional or international institutions such as the EU institutions, notably the Commission and UN Women would bring mutual benefits.

The emergence of social media as a force for good and for evil was one of the key themes of the Tallinn Conference. As a concept for inclusion in a new Strategy, this crosses over three of the existing priorities. First of all, social media is the medium of choice for reaching out to young people, both men and women. It is therefore the ideal medium to use to raise awareness of the key messages of gender equality – the win-win situation; the need to respect both girls and boys in all behaviours; the need to think laterally to avoid stereotypes; and build on personal developmental opportunities, in work, in sport and across life.

However, social media is also contributing to many of the new strands of violence against women – bullying, pornography, sexualisation of girls and boys, grooming, the online sex trade, revenge porn - to highlight but a few. This situation also needs to be addressed, for example by creating awareness-raising programmes, aimed both at young men and women, who may not be aware of the impact of their behaviours. While young men may perpetrate unacceptable behaviours, young women can find themselves subjected to abuse due to their ignorance of the appropriate use of social media. This challenge obviously cuts across the awareness-raising priority but also the prevention of and protection from violence against women. Finally, improving the participation of women in political and public life will depend to a large extent on how sexist and/or violent messages and content through social media against female politicians and women working in the public sphere will be tackled.

Another proposal which emerged on many occasions during the discussion in Tallinn related to a possible initiative to incorporate gender equality into the educational curriculum, across member states. While this has merit, given that children experience gendered behaviours and stereotyping from an early age, it is very difficult to envisage how such difficult concepts can be taught to young children. The Council of Europe has previously done work on the Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (but not without challenges). In addition, the focus should be placed in implementing Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)13 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming in education.

More recently, the Council has developed and is currently piloting a framework of competencies for democratic culture which aims to teach children about democratic values and critical thinking in a very structured manner. This work, if successful, might well serve as a model to introduce children to the complexities of gender equality. It would therefore be beneficial if the GEC were to follow the progress of that project, with a view to its replication in a gender equality context in the future.

One of the existing priority areas which has seen progress to date is the advancement of women into decision-making roles, although there is still much work to be done to achieve the rather soft target of a minimum of 40% representation of women in leadership roles. The Chair of the PACE Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination called for the adoption of the stronger target of parity.

It could be argued that the GEC now has a limited role in relation to the achievement of these targets, the impetus for which lies within the member states and other key stakeholders such as political parties, leaders of industry and governments who collectively have the power to foster the advancement of women into the most senior roles. However, it is important to track progress in relation to key indicators of gender equality and such an exercise is in progress at time of writing.

The final priority in the current Strategy is that of gender mainstreaming. This is a priority which has met with considerable progress within the Council of Europe over the past four years. It can be argued that it is now a matter for member states to emulate both the Council of Europe and the UN by adopting a whole of government approach to gender mainstreaming. Tools developed by both the Council of Europe and EIGE are readily available to assist member states in this task. Discussion at the Conference leads to the conclusion that gender mainstreaming is an ongoing process required for good policy making and not a goal in itself.

Recommendations on a new Gender Equality Strategy

1. In developing its new Gender Equality Strategy, the GEC should consider progress and achievements on each priority under the present Strategy; the added value of continuing work on that priority; emerging issues; linkages to the overarching priorities of the Council of Europe; and the avoidance of duplication of work being undertaken by other international bodies.

2. The new Gender Equality Strategy must be targeted and ambitious in its content; have the flexibility to respond to emerging issues; be grounded in the reality of scarce resources; and meet the needs of the member states and the Council of Europe.

3. The GEC should continue to serve as advocate at the national level for the implementation of all Council of Europe standards on Gender Equality.

4. The GEC should continue to collaborate with other international bodies, strengthening links where appropriate, particularly in light of the new UN Sustainable Development Goals.

5. In considering major emerging issues such as migration, the GEC might assess the scope of its potential contribution and identify linkages between existing priorities such as ‘women’s access to justice’ and ‘violence against women’ both of which are recognised by the Council of Europe as very significant challenges for migrant women, including for women refugees and asylum seekers.

6. The GEC might also consider establishing a stand-alone priority to address the intersectionality of discrimination against women by starting a dialogue on the specific needs of women from groups such as Roma women; women from ethnic minorities; women with a disability; LBT women; migrant women; older women; women experiencing poverty.

7. In developing its new strategy, the GEC might consider how it can further use new media to promote awareness of gender stereotypes of sexism, reaching out in particular to young people and also to men in leadership roles, as both groups are essential agents for change, albeit from very different perspectives.

9. The mainstreaming of gender equality in the Council of Europe serves as a model of good practice to be replicated by member state governments in a more concerted manner, 21 years after the adoption of the approach in Beijing. Member states are encouraged to be more proactive in implementing gender mainstreaming at national level, while retaining it as a core principle underpinning the new strategy (building on achievements to date and ensuring that all policies and measures of the Council of Europe integrate a gender perspective).

10. While there are still significant deficits in relation to women in decision-making roles, again the impetus lies with the member states in closing the gaps. Accordingly the GEC should encourage member states to continue collecting data in relation to implementing Rec(2003)3 in order to facilitate the monitoring of progress across all Council of Europe member states.

Appendix I - Conference Programme


	Thursday, 30 June 2015
	Opening Session Moderator: Sergiy Kyslytsya, Chairperson of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, Ukraine
	9.00 - 9.30 am	Opening remarks by: Ø Taavi Rõivas, Prime Minister of Estonia Ø Snežana Samardžić-Marković, Director General of Democracy, Council of Europe Ø Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director, Strategic Partnerships, Coordination and Intergovernmental Support Bureau, UN Women Ø Salla Saastamoinen, Director of Equality, Directorate-General Justice and Consumers, European Commission
	Panel 1 – Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017: Taking stock Moderator: Kira Appel, Vice-Chairperson of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, Denmark
	*Progress and challenges*
	9.30 - 9.45 am	Liri Kopaçi-Di Michele, Head of the Equality Division, Council of Europe
	*The impact of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy*
	9.45 - 9.55 am	Pamela Morinière, European Federation of Journalists - *gender equality and media, gender stereotypes and sexist hate speech*
	9.55 - 10.05 am	Hillary Margolis, Human Rights Watch - preventing and combating violence against women
	10.05 - 10.15 am	Sylwia Spurek, Legal Expert, Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights of Poland responsible for equal treatment issues - *promoting equal access of women to justice*
	10.15 - 10.25 am	Elena Centemero, Chairperson of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe - achieving balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision-making
	10.25 - 10.45 am	*Questions and discussion*
	10.45 - 11.15 am	Coffee break
	Panel 2 – Sharing knowledge and information to advance the gender equality agenda and implement the Council of Europe Strategy: the impact of social media Moderator: Fanny Benedetti, member of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, France
	11.15 - 11.30 am	Introductory speech: Overview of initiatives and examples regarding the positive and negative aspects of social media for the promotion of gender equality - Léa Clermont-Dion, Researcher on cyber-violence against women, Laval University, Canada

11.30 – 12.15 pm	Short interventions from panellists and panel discussion
	Charlotte Proudman, Barrister, United Kingdom
	Rósa Guðrún Erlingsdóttir, deputy member of the Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Gender Equality, Iceland
	Katrin Nyman-Metcalf, Head of the Chair of Law and Technology, Tallinn University of Technology, Head of Research, Estonian e-Governance Academy, Estonia
	Nataša Briški, Journalist, Co-Founder and CEO of media network ‘Meta's List’, Slovenia
	Daria Manshina, Founder of “Shut your sexist mouth up”, Russian Federation
12.15 - 12.45 pm	*Questions and discussion*
12.45 - 2.15 pm	Lunch Break
Panel 3 – Gender matters: Gender mainstreaming in international organisations – best practices and impact on national policies and strategies Moderator: Helena Štimac Radin, member of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, Croatia
2.15 – 2.30 pm	Introductory speech: Overview of institutional challenges and opportunities for gender mainstreaming at the international level and impacts at the national level – Elisabeth Prügl, Director of the Gender Centre, Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland
2.30 – 3.15 pm	Short interventions from panellists and panel discussion
	Carolina Lasén Diaz, Head of the Gender Equality Unit, Council of Europe
	Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director, Strategic Partnerships, Coordination and Intergovernmental Support Bureau, UN Women
	Barbara Limanowska, Senior Gender Mainstreaming Expert, European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)
	Maaike Van Adrichem, Adviser on Gender Issues, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)
	Filip Kochan, Communications Officer, the World Bank Group, Poland
3.15 – 3.45 pm	*Questions and discussion*
3.45 - 4.15 pm	Coffee (& networking) break
Panel 4 – Tools for enhancing gender mainstreaming – from political will to e-solutions Moderator: Eva Fehringer, member of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, Austria
4.15 - 4.30 pm	Introductory speech: Overview of examples from member states about national policies for gender mainstreaming – Alba Alonso Alvarez, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
4.30 – 5.15 pm	Short interventions from panellists and panel discussion
	Lillemor Dahlgren, Head of Operations on Gender Equality, Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
	Liisa-Ly Pakosta, Gender Equality and Equal Treatment Commissioner, Estonia
	Blerina Xhani, Specialist on gender issues, Albania
	Romain Sabathier, Secretary General, High Council for Gender Equality, France
	Unnur Ágústsdóttir, Special Advisor, Department of Economic Analysis and Budget, Ministry of Welfare, Iceland
5.15 - 5.45 pm	*Questions and discussion*
Friday, 1 July 2016
Panel 5 - High level panel: the way forward Moderator: Charles Ramsden, member of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, United Kingdom
9.00 - 9.10 am		Margus Tsahkna, Minister of Social Protection, Estonia
9.10 - 9.20 am		Antigoni Pericleous Papadopoulou, President of GODIK, the Women’s Organization of the Democratic Party, Cyprus
9.20 - 9.30 am		Jiří Dienstbier, Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation, Czech Republic
9.30 - 9.40 am		Kira Appel, Chief Adviser and Deputy Head of Department, Gender Equality Unit, Ministry of Children, Education and Gender Equality, Denmark
9.40 - 9.50 am		Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director, Strategic Partnerships, Coordination and Intergovernmental Support Bureau, UN Women
9.50 - 10.00 am		Salla Saastamoinen, Director of Equality, Directorate-General for Justice, European Commission
10.00 - 10.15 am		*Questions and discussion*
10.15 - 10.45 am	Coffee (& networking) break
Panel 5 – High level panel – the way forward (cont.) Moderator: Charles de Vries, member of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, the Netherlands
10.45 – 11.00 am		Anne Nègre, Gender Equality Expert, Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe
11.00 – 11.15 am		Sergiy Kyslytsya, Chairperson of the Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission, Ukraine
11.15 - 12.00 pm		*Questions and discussion*
Closing session Moderator: Marianne Mikko, Member of Parliament and Head of the Estonian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
12.00 - 12.20 pm		Conclusions and Recommendations Pauline Moreau, General Rapporteur
12.20 - 12.30 pm 12.30 - 12.40 pm		Closing remarks by: Ø Snežana Samardžić-Marković, Director General of Democracy, Council of Europe Ø Marina Kaljurand, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia
12.40 pm		End of conference

Appendix II - List of Conference Participants

MEMBERS OF THE GENDER EQUALITY COMMISSION/NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVES

Andorra

Mireia V. PORRAS GARCÍA

Social Educator

Equality Policies Department

Department of Social Affairs Ministry of Social Affairs, Justice and the Interior

Armenia

Anna POGHOSYAN

Department of International Organizations, Human Rights Division

Attaché Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Austria

Eva FEHRINGER

Deputy Director

Federal Ministry of Social Affairs

Belgium

An GYDÉ

Policy officer on gender

Flemish Government

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Kika BABIC-SVETLIN

Senior Advisor for Planning, Development and Monitoring Agency for Gender Equality

Croatia

Helena ŠTIMAC RADIN

Director

Office for Gender Equality

Czech Republic

Radan ŠAFAŘÍK

Gender Equality Unit

Office of the Government of the Czech Republic

Olga JERABKOVA

Officer, Office of the Government of the Czech Republic

Denmark

Kira APPEL

Vice-Chairperson of the GEC/Vice-Présidente de la GEC

Deputy Head of Department

Ministry of Children, Education and Gender Equality

Estonia

Käthlin SANDER

Head of Gender Equality Policy

Department of Equality Policies

Ministry of Social Affairs

Finland

Päivi YLI-PIETILÄ

Ministerial Adviser

Ministry of Social Affairs and Health

France

Fanny BENEDETTI

Adviser

Directorate General of Social Cohesion Ministry of Families, Children’s and women’s rights

Georgia

Beka DZAMASHVILI

Head of Public International Law Department

Ministry of Justice

Germany

Nicole HERZOG

Vice head of Division

European and international gender equality policy

Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth

Iceland

Rósa Guðrún ERLINGSDÓTTIR

Special Advisor

Ministry of Welfare

Ireland

Deirdre Nĺ NÉILL

Assistant Principal Officer Gender Equality Division,

Department of Justice and Equality

Lithuania

Rita ZEMAITYTE-TACK

Head of Unit for Equality between Women and Men

Ministry of Social Security and Labour

Luxembourg

G. Eva MARKUSDOTTIR

Policy Officer, International Relations and Communication

Ministry of Equal Opportunities

Malta

Stephanie BORG BONACI

Senior Policy Mainstreaming, Training and Legal Executive

National Commission for the Promotion of Equality, NCPE

Republic of Moldova

Lilia PASCAL

Head of Department for gender equality between men and women

Ministry of Labour Social Protection and Family

Monaco

Gabriel REVEL

Deputy to the Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe

Montenegro

Biljana PEJOVIĆ

Head of Department for Gender Equality

Ministry for Human and Minority Rights

Tatjana ANDJELIC

Senior Adviser

Ministry for Human and Minority Rights

Netherlands

Charles DE VRIES

Senior Policy Advisor

Ministry of Education, Culture and Science

Gender Equality and LGBT Equality Department

Norway

Anette HOEL

Senior advisor

Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs

Department for Equality

Bjorn LESCHER-NULAND

Head of section

Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs

Poland

Jolanta WASZKIEWICZ

Senior Specialist

Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy

Portugal

Marina Sofia BIRRENTO SARAIVA

Technical CIG

Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género

Russian Federation

Olga OPANASENKO

First Secretary

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Tatiana MELNIKOVA

Deputy Head of Division of Demography Policy and Gender Equality, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Russian Federation

Ekaterina ZIVKO

Specialist of legal and international affairs department, Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, Russian Federation

Serbia

Dragan KNEZEVIC

Gender Equality Department

Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs

Slovenia

Sara SLANA

Senior Advisor

Equal Opportunities Department

Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities

Jasna JERAM

Undersecretary

Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities

Spain

Ana ARRILLAGA ALDAMA

Chief of Service

Director Support Unit

Institute of Women and for Equal Opportunities

Ministry of Health, Social services and Equality

Sweden

Lillemor DAHLGREN

Head of Operations for Gender Equality

Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research

Switzerland

Andrea BINDER

Head of Legal Affairs

Swiss Federal Office for Gender Equality

“The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”

Elena GROZDANOVA

State Counselor for Equal opportunity

Ministry of Labor and Social Policy

Turkey

F. Çiğdem TENKER KÖKSAL

Counsellor

Turkish Embassy, Tallinn

Ukraine

Sergiy KYSLYTSYA

Chair of GEC/Président de la GEC

Vice Minister

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

United Kingdom

Charles RAMSDEN

Head of EU and International Policy

Government Equalities Office

SPEAKERS

Unnur AGUSTSDOTTIR

Special Advisor/Expert, Ministry of Welfare, Iceland

Alba ALONSO ALVAREZ

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Nataša BRIŠKI

CEO, Institute and digital media network Meta's list, Slovenia

Elena CENTEMERO

Chairperson of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Léa CLERMONT-DION

Author and doctorate in political science, Université Laval, Canada

Jiri DIENSTBIER

Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation Office, Czech Republic

Marina KALJURAND

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Estonia

Filip KOCHAN

Communications Officer, World Bank Group, Poland

Liri KOPAÇI-DI MICHELE

Head of Equality Division, Council of Europe

Carolina LASÉN DIAZ

Head of Gender Equality Unit, Council of Europe

Barbara LIMANOWSKA

Senior Gender Mainstreaming Expert, European Institute for Gender Equality

Daria MANSHINA

Founder, “Shut your sexist mouth up”, Russian Federation

Hillary MARGOLIS

Researcher, Human Rights Watch

Pamela MORINIERE

Gender Officer, European Federation of Journalists

Anne NEGRE

Gender Equality expert, Conference of OING, Council of Europe

Katrin NYMAN METCALF

Professor, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

Liisa PAKOSTA

Gender Equality and Equal Treatment Commissioner, Estonia

Antigoni PAPADOPOULOU PERICLEOUS

President of the Women’s Organization of the Democratic Party – Godik

Charlotte PROUDMAN

Barrister, United Kingdom

Elisabeth PRÜGL

Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

Lakshmi PURI

Deputy Executive Director, UN Women

Taavi RÕIVAS

Prime Minister of Estonia

Salla SAASTAMOINEN

Director of Equality, DG Justice, European Commission

Romain SABATHIER

Secretary General, High Council for Equality between men and women (HCE), France

Snežana SAMARDŽIĆ-MARKOVIĆ Director General of Democracy, Council of Europe

Sylwia SPUREK

Legal Expert, Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights responsible for equality treatment issues, Poland

Margus TSAHKNA

Minister of Social Protection, Estonia

Maaike VAN ADRICHEM

Adviser on Gender Issues, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Blerina XHANI

National Consultant to the Ministry of Finance Albania, UN Women

GENERAL RAPPORTEUR

Pauline MOREAU

Ireland

HOST AUTHORITIES

Prime Minister’s Office

Kristiina SILD

Adviser to the Prime Minister, Government Office

Ministry of Social Affairs

Kristel-Amelie AIMRE

Adviser of the European Union

Katri EESPERE

Head of Department

Agnes EINMAN

Chief Specialist

Grete KAJU

Programme Coordinator (Norway Grants "Mainstreaming Gender Equality and Promoting Work-Life Balance")

Edith KALLASTE

Head of Department

Liina KANTER

Head of Department

Kati KEEL

Adviser Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs

Eda KONDRA

Chief Specialist

Susan LILLEVÄLI

Adviser to the Minister

Kristiina LUHT

Adviser

Loona-Liis MARDIM

Trainee

Kelly OTSMAN

Chief Specialist

Keit PARTS

Advisor, Government Office

Marju RAJU

Research Adviser

Linda SASSIAN

Counselor for social affairs, Permanent Representation of Estonia to the EU

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Kärt JUHASOO-LAWRENCE

Deputy Permanent Representative

Permanent Representation of Estonia to the Council of Europe

Anneli LEEGA PIISKOP

Desk Officer

Ketli LINDUS

Intern

Kaisa MÄNNIK

Human Rights Desk Officer

Evert RÖÖPSON

Counsellor to the Minister

Estonian Parliament

Marianne MIKKO

Member Riigikogu

DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS - TALLINN

Cornelia GODFREY

Deputy Head of Mission, Austrian Embassy,

Richard KADLČÁK

Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Estonia

Søren KELSTRUP

Ambassador of Denmark to Estonia

Martin Harvej JENSEN

Intern, Embassy of Denmark to Estonia

Laurent ORIOL

Counsellor, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of France to Estonia

Robin FOURNIER

Trainee, Embassy of France to Estonia

Natalie KIPAROIDZE

Embassy of Georgia to Estonia

Frank FLOOD

Ambassador of Ireland to Estonia

Neilas TANKEVIčIUS

Ambassador, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to the Republic of Estonia

Ieva KLUSAITYTE

Trainee, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to the Republic of Estonia

Tatiana GÎNDEA

Second Secretary, Embassy of the Republic of Moldova to the Republic of Estonia

Inga IONESII

Ambassador, Embassy of the Republic of Moldova to the Republic of Estonia

Noah VAN DER VAART

Trainee, Embassy of the Netherlands in Estonia

Ellen AABØ

Deputy Head of Mission, Royal Norwegian Embassy

Mette C. R. OLSEN

Trainee, Royal Norwegian Embassy

Kristin SKOLT

Trainee, Royal Norwegian Embassy

Fredrik NORDIN

Second Secretary, Embassy of Sweden

Kathryn LINDSAY

Deputy Head of Embassy, British Embassy,

Lennely SAAR

Political Officer, British Embassy

Ulla KATTAI

Corporate Services Manager, British Embassy

Francisco Javier LOPEZ LORENZANA

Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Spain

Alexander SAVINOV

Second Secretary, Embassy of Russia in Estonia

Ekaterina GORBATOVA

Senior Counsellor Embassy of Russia in Estonia

Viktor KIRYZHANIVSKY

Ambassador of Ukraine to Estonia

Vasyl YAKOVENKO

First Secretary, Embassy of Ukraine to Estonia

OTHER PARTICIPANTS

Marie ABEL

Estonian Sexual Health Association

Ilvi CANNON

Member, Board of Directors Eesti Naisuurimus - ja Teabekeskus (ENUT)

Ülle ERNITS

Rector, Tallinn Health Care College

Jana FROLOVA

Veebikonstaabel Politsei - ja Piirivalveamet

Renate GROSS

Public Policy Officer, Federation of Estonian Student Unions

Mati KARNFUS

Natalie KONTOULIS

Advocacy and Communications Officer, End FGM European Network

Riina KÜTT

Lecturer Estonian Women's Associations Roundtable

Kinga JOO

Member, European Economic and Social Committee

Reet LAJA

Chair of the Board Estonian Women’s Studies and Research Centre

Eero LANTTO

Mona-Liisa LOUHISOLA,

Enkhtsetseg MIYEGOMBO

UN Women

Triin OTA

Eveliis PADAR

Marion PAJUMETS

Co-ordinator, Estonian National Contact Point for European Migration Network

Ülle-Marike PAPP

Lecturer, Tallinn University

Kristina PAPSEJEVA

Project Manager, Estonian Sexual Health Association

Liivi PEHK

Head of the competence centre, Office of the Gender Equality and Equal Treatment Commissioner

Maari POIM

Maret PRISKE

Board Member, Co-operation Network of Estonian Women

Järve VALLI

Kadi VIIK

Editor Feministeerium

Halliki VOOLMA

Project Director, Health Estonia Foundation

COUNCIL OF EUROPE

REPRESENTATIVES OF COMMITTEES

Ourania BOTSI

Research Consultant, Gender and Mediterranean Cooperation

Co-operation Group to Combat Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs (Pompidou Group), Council of Europe

Simona LANZONI

Gender Equality Rapporteur for the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) of the Council of Europe

Tinna Rós STEINSDÓTTIR

Bureau Member of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe

Maja ZARIC

Gender Equality Rapporteur, Committee of Experts on media pluralism and transparency of Media (MSI-MED) of the Council of Europe

SECRETARIAT

Snežana SAMARDŽIĆ-MARKOVIĆ

Director General of Democracy, Council of Europe

Liri KOPAÇI-DI MICHELE

Head of Equality Division, Council of Europe

Carolina LASÉN DIAZ

Head of Gender Equality Unit, Council of Europe

Adrienne INGLEDOW

Principal Administrative Assistant

Gender Equality Unit

INTERPRETERS

Angela BREWER

Christine GILL

Appendix III - Biographies of Conference Speakers

Taavi Rõivas has been Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia since 26 March 2014. His second government took office on 9 April 2015. He is a member of the Estonian Reform Party. From 2012–2014, Taavi Rõivas was the Minister of Social Affairs of the Republic of Estonia and from 2011–2012, he was a member of the 12th Riigikogu, the Chairman of the European Union Affairs Committee, and a member of the Finance Committee. From 2007–2011, Taavi Rõivas was a member of the 11th Riigikogu and first, a member of the Social Affairs Committee for two years and then the Chairman of the Finance Committee. From 2005–2007, Taavi Rõivas served as the Adviser to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia and previously from 2004–2005, he was the Elder of the Haabersti City District Government. He has previously performed the duties of Adviser / Office Manager for the Minister of the Population Affairs of the Republic of Estonia, Customer Account Executive for large corporate companies in the AS IT Grupp, and Adviser to the Minister of Justice. Born on 26 September 1979, in Tallinn, Taavi Rõivas graduated from Tallinn Secondary Science School and from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Tartu in international economics and marketing.

Snežana Samardžić-Marković is, since 2012, Director General of Democracy at the Council of Europe, in charge of the Organisation’s action promoting democratic innovation, governance, participation and diversity. Her responsibilities include the policy areas of education and youth, local democracy, cultural policies, election assistance, the protection of human dignity, gender equality, children’s rights, and the rights of minorities, societal defences against discrimination, democratic citizenship, social cohesion, intercultural dialogue and democratic responses to crisis situations. Previously, Snežana has held numerous positions in the Serbian Government including Deputy Director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Neighbouring Countries, Assistant Minister of Defence (2005-2007) and Co-President of the Serbia-NATO Defence Reform Group, member of the Foundation Board of WADA, Minister of Youth and Sports (2007-2012) and President of the Fund for Young Talents.

Lakshmi Puri(India) is Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, responsible for the Bureau for Intergovernmental Support, UN System Coordination, and Strategic Partnerships, and was the interim head of UN Women from March to August 2013. She has steered UN Women’s engagement in major intergovernmental processes, such as the Commission on the Status of Women, including the landmark outcomes of the 57th and 58th sessions, as well as the historic 59th session on the 20-year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which resulted in a Political Declaration by which member states pledged to take concrete steps to ensure the full, effective and accelerated actions to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women. Ms Puri has been at the forefront of UN Women’s intergovernmental work on Sustainable Development, Climate Change, Financing for Development, Health, Information Society, Youth, Migration, Women, Peace and Security, the Urban Agenda and Humanitarian Action. She was previously Director of the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States and a Director at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Prior to joining the UN, Ms Puri had a distinguished 28-year career with the Indian Foreign Service.

Salla Saastamoinen is the Director in charge of Equality in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers since 2014. The Equality Directorate develops implements and coordinates the EU policy to combat discrimination and to promote equality on grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. It promotes awareness on gender equality and non-discrimination and coordinates policy developments in respect of the Roma. Previously, Salla Saastamoinen headed the Unit for Fundamental Rights and Rights of the Child (2013-2014) and the Civil Justice Policy Unit (2007-2013) in the same Directorate-General in the Commission. She is a lawyer from the University of Helsinki, Finland. Salla Saastamoinen was Member of the Management Board of the Fundamental Rights Agency between 2013 and 2014, and she is the Member of the Management Board of the European Institute for Gender Equality since 2014.

Liri Kopaçi-Di Michele is Head of the Equality Division at the Council of Europe in charge of promoting and implementing Council of Europe standards and activities in the area of gender equality, the rights of persons with disabilities and discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. Since joining the Council of Europe in 1997, she has worked in a variety of positions including the Private Office of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary General, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Private Office of the President as well as the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities. Ms Kopaçi-Di Michele graduated with a MSc. in Management from the University of Surrey in England, and a BA in English Language from the University of Tirana in Albania.

Pamela Morinièrejoined the International/European Federations of Journalists in 2002 and has been responsible for running campaigns on authors’ rights, gender, ethics, press freedom and labour rights. She wrote several publications on gender and media, including the Council of Europe’s latest Handbook on the implementation of Recommendation CM/Rec(2013)1 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on gender equality and media.

Hillary Margolisis a researcher with the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. Her work focuses on violence against women in Europe, Central Asia, and Central Africa. She has documented and conducted advocacy on domestic violence and sexual violence in and outside of conflict. Her work at Human Rights Watch has included investigation of state failure to address domestic violence in Kyrgyzstan, and the impact of the conflict in Syria on women and girls, including exploitation and harassment in refugee settings, abuse of women in detention, and risks facing female activists and household heads. She has appeared on BBC Woman’s Hour and her work on violence against women has been published in the EU Observer, Global Post, MSNBC. Hillary earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

Sylwia Spurek- doctor of Law, legal counsel and legislator, co-founder of the Foundation Governance Clinic. Since 1999 involved in the protection of human rights. Fellow of the Legal Fellowship Program and participant of the International Women’s Human Rights Clinic (City University of New York, 2000). Between 2002 and 2005 lawyer in the Secretariat of the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Status of Men and Women. Participated in preparing the first act on the prevention of domestic violence. Until 2014 counsel at the Office of the Prime Minister (Legal Department), later serving as deputy head of the Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for Equal Treatment. Between 2008-2015 member of the Unit for European Court of Human Rights issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and between 2010-2012 representative of the Office of the Prime Minister at the Committee of the Protection of Rights. University lecturer of Gender Studies at the University of Warsaw and post-graduate studies of Gender Mainstreaming at the Polish Academy of Sciences. She is the author of numerous publications on domestic violence, as well as equal treatment and discrimination issues. Sylwia is currently Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights of the Republic of Poland responsible for equal treatment issues.

Elena Centemero(Italy, EPP/CD), Member of Parliament since 2008, was born in Milan in 1968 and studied at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan and at the New York City University’s Hunter College. She taught classical studies and languages in high schools from 1993 to 2012 and then became a head teacher. Since 2005 she has been a volunteer at Our Lady of Lourdes in France and is a member of Hospitalité Notre-Dame de Lourdes. Ms Centemero is a member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Committee on Culture of the Italian Parliament (and chairs her political group Forza Italia within the latter). She is in charge of school and education policies for her party. In 2013 Ms Centemero was appointed as a member of the Italian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In January 2016 she was elected Chairperson of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination.

Léa Clermont-Dion is a PHD candidate in political science at Laval University (Québec) aiming her thesis on cyber violence against women for which she was awarded a prestigious Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. She has published two essays, Lettres à un souverainiste (2014) and La revanche des moches (2014), the latter exploring the matter of corporal diversity, a concern which brought her to co-initiate the Charter for a Healthy and Diverse Body Image promulgated by the Gouvernement du Québec in 2009. She has served on missions with women organisations and Oxfam-Québec, was member of Council on the Status of Women, worked for the Secrétariat des femmes du Québec and has worked at consciousness awareness for the last ten years in lectures and conferences. She is currently working on a book, Les Superbes, and a documentary, Misogynie 2.0, to be released in 2017.

Charlotte Proudmanis a Barrister in family law and human rights law at The Chambers of Michael Mansfield QC. She is a fearless advocate for women’s rights, an expert in female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriage, and honour-based violence, and a media commentator on progressive social issues. Charlotte is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Cambridge researching FGM in England and Wales, and she was a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School. As a Barrister and a feminist, Charlotte is a prominent advocate who speaks out against male domination in the law and the legal profession by drawing on examples of anti-women biases in law, such as abortion, prostitution and pornography legislation. Recognising that the Judiciary is disproportionately skewed towards one gender, one class, and one ethnicity to the detriment of our democracy, Charlotte is campaigning for the introduction of quotas amongst the Judiciary. Her media work includes BBC 4 Woman’s Hour, BBC2, BBC5, BBC London, LBC Radio, Sky News, Channel 4 News, Newsnight, London Evening Standard, the Guardian, the Independent, New Statesman, the Times, and the Huffington Post, among many others.

Rósa Guðrún Erlingsdóttir works as a Senior Advisor within the policy field of Gender Equality at the Ministry of Welfare and a project manager of the Action Group of Equal Pay. In 2014 Rósa worked as a project manager of the Icelandic Presidency in the Nordic Council of Ministers and is now a member of the Executive Committee on Gender Equality in the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Katrin Nyman-Metcalf is Head of the Chair of Law and Technology at Tallinn University of Technology and Head of Research at the Estonian e-Governance Academy. She is furthermore active as an international consultant, working globally primarily in the area of communications law in the wide sense, including ICT regulation, privacy and data protection, media law, e-governance and various cyber issues. Her PhD (Uppsala University, Sweden, 1999) is on the law of outer space and Katrin represents Estonia in the International Relations Committee of the European Space Agency.

Nataša Briški,CEO of Slovenian digital media network Meta’s List. Journalist by profession, with strong media credentials and 20 years of experience working for various media, mostly TV. Also co-host of a podcast on the media Meta’s tea. Strategic communications adviser when needed, social media afficionado 24/7. Nataša is also a member of Expert Council on Gender Equality, founded by Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Working to encourage active citizenship, advocate for gender equality and promote science. Actively involved in various NGO projects in Slovenia and EU, guest lectures at various Institutes, Universities and Faculties in Slovenia and educates on topics such as Communication Strategies, use of New & Social Media. In her previous life Natasha was a host of a popular television sports programme, Washington DC based foreign affairs correspondent for top news channel in Slovenia and BBC World Report.

Daria Manshina is a 25 year old feminist and human rights activist who received a BA in German and has been studying Transnational Literature in Bremen, Germany. She lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. For the last two and a half years she has been leading an online page for survivors of gender-based violence, an analogue of the Everyday Sexism project.

Elisabeth Prüglis Professor of International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva where she directs the Institute’s Gender Centre. In the course of her academic career in the US and Switzerland her research and teaching have focused on gender politics in international governance. She has published extensively on issues including the regulation of home-based labour, gender and agriculture in the European Union, and the neoliberalization of feminism. She currently directs several research projects, including the DEMETER project on land commercialisation, gendered agrarian transformation and the right to food, a project on the gender dimensions of violent conflict, and another on gender experts and gender expertise. She is a member of the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Civic Participation.

Carolina Lasén Diazhas worked at the Council of Europe since 2005 and is currently the Head of the Gender Equality Unit. Her previous post was in the secretariat of the Council of Europe’s monitoring mechanism on action against trafficking in human beings (GRETA). Prior to her arrival at the Council of Europe, Carolina lived in the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2004, where she provided legal advice on international and EU law. She holds a law degree from Madrid’s Complutense University and a Master in EU law.

Barbara Limanowska works as a Senior Gender Mainstreaming Expert at the European Institute for Gender Equality. Before that she worked for the regional UNDP office in Bratislava as their Regional Gender Coordinator and prior to that as a Special Advisor on Trafficking in Human Beings to UNHCHR.

Maaike van Adrichem is Adviser on Gender Issues in the Gender Section of the Office of the Secretary-General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Before joining OSCE, Ms Van Adrichem worked with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the Middle East. As a Gender & Rights Officer, she supported the implementation of the Gender Action Plan and gender mainstreaming in the Country Offices in the UNICEF Middle East and North Africa Regional Office in Amman, Jordan. From 2014-2015 she was responsible for the design and implementation of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) prevention and response programme as part of the Syria refugee response and the regular development programme, in the Child Protection team of the UNICEF Jordan Country Office. Ms Van Adrichem started her career working for NGOs in the Netherlands on human rights, democratization and gender issues and gained experience with the Netherlands Red Cross supporting the humanitarian response at the Southern Africa and Middle East desk. Ms Van Adrichem has a master degree in International Relations from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands and an Advanced Master in International Development from the Center for International Development Issues in Nijmegen (CIDIN).

Filip Kochan is Communications Officer at the World Bank responsible for Poland and the Baltic Countries. Prior to joining the World Bank in November 2015, he worked as a consultant in Poland’s oldest communications consultancy company NBS Communications. Before that, between 2008-2012, he was Warsaw-based correspondent for Reuters covering monetary policy, fiscal policy and financial markets. He holds Master Degrees in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Warsaw. He also finished postgraduate studies in the fields of financial markets and the Eurozone.

Dr Alba Alonso Alvarezis a postdoctoral research fellow of the Political Science Department at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). She has been a researcher of the EU FPVI project QUING (Quality in Gender + Equality Policies) and various studies driven by the European Institute for Gender Equality of the EU. She has been Visiting Fellow of the University of Edinburgh, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Washington State University. Alba is currently a member of the core group of the ‘Gender Equality Policy in Practice’ project and co-leader of its Issue Network on Care Policies. Her main research areas refer to the implementation of gender equality policies – with a particular focus on gender mainstreaming, the women’s movement, and the promotion of equality in science. She is the author of El mainstreaming de género en España and co-editor of Ciencia Política con Perspectiva de Género. Her work has been published in international journals like Social Politics, European Journal of Women’s Studies, and European Political Science, as well as in collective books like Institutionalizing Intersectionality?: The Changing Nature of European Equality Regimes.

Lillemor Dahlgrenis the head of operations of gender equality at the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of Gothenburg, and in charge of the GMGA programme (gender mainstreaming in government agencies) and the web portal includegender.org. The programme offers support to 60 government agencies, as well as the Government offices in their work with gender mainstreaming. She has previously worked as a gender equality expert within several different government agencies, such as the Swedish Police and the County Administrative Board, with the main focus on gender mainstreaming, but also areas such as men’s violence against women, human rights, discrimination and gender equality in general. Her educational background is within gender studies, but she has also worked at the Sociology department as a research assistant in a Nordic project: Welfare Policy and Employment in the Context of Family Change.

Liisa-Ly Pakostais the Gender Equality and Equal Treatment Commissioner of Estonia whose responsibilities are to monitor compliance with the Gender Equality Act and the Equal Treatment Act with surveillance over both the public and private sectors. From 2009-2015, Ms Pakosta was a member of the Estonian Parliament and during this time was a member of the European Union Affairs Committee, a member of the Social Committee and a member of the Cultural Committee. She was also Head of the Estonian Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. From 2002 – 2008, Ms Pakosta was a member of the board, author and producer at the Estonian National Broadcasting authorities. She holds an MA in Pedagogics, anthropology and history from Tartu University. She speaks many languages besides Estonian, such as English, Swedish, and Russian. Ms Pakosta has co-authored or authored several education articles book booklets and TV series she is a mother of five children.

Blerina Xhani is a UN Women National Consultant to the Ministry of Finance of Albania for the introduction of Gender Responsive Budgeting in the Medium Term Budget Program. She graduated in Business Administration at “La Sapienza” University Rome, Italy in 2006. After graduation, she worked in the Ministry of Finance of Albania for nine years in different key positions such as: Human Resources Officer, Financial & Budget Analyst and Financial Administrator. She currently is pursuing a PhD Programme at the Faculty of Economy of the University of Tirana with a research focus on Gender Equality in Start-Up Businesses in Albania.

Romain Sabathier: Having been an active citizen from an early age, Romain Sabathier first held various positions in the voluntary sector, trade unions and politics. Following studies in France and Norway, he holds a double master’s in political science and gender studies. From 2009 to 2013, he worked for several members of the French National Assembly, in particular on gender & regional equality issues. He is currently Secretary General of the High Council for Gender Equality (HCE), a position he has held since the body was set up by presidential decree in 2013. This independent national advisory agency has four main tasks in the gender equality field: ensuring dialogue, evaluating public policies, making recommendations and raising awareness by disseminating know-how and stimulating public debate. From 2013 to 2015, on the basis of nine ministerial requests and several initiatives of its own, the HCE issued 7 reports and 10 opinions. This helped to keep gender equality at the top of the agenda in public debate and prompt various government plans and laws on gender policies.

Unnur Ágústsdóttir works as a Special Advisor at the Department of Analysis and Budget at the Ministry of Welfare in Iceland. She represents the Ministry in the Steering Committee for Gender Budgeting and is responsible for the Implementation Plan for Gender Budgeting at the Ministry of Welfare. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration with focus on Sick Pay in Iceland, a Post Graduate Diploma in Public Administration and is currently studying for a Post Graduate Diploma in Gender Studies. Before her career in the Public Sector she had a broad experience both in budgeting and financial management, publishing companies and non-profit organizations. Main Interests: welfare-politics, social theory, literature, gender studies.

Margus Tsahkna has been the Minister of Social Protection of the Republic of Estonia since 9 April 2015. Since 6 July 2015, he has been chairman of Pro Patria and Res Publica Union. In 2007–2015, Margus Tsahkna was a member of the XI and XII Riigikogu. In the same parliament, he was a member of the Monetary and Social Affairs Committee. In 2011–2014, he was Chairman of the Social Affairs Committee. During the same period he was the Vice Chairman of the Board of the Estonian Health Insurance Fund. In 2007–2011, Margus Tsahkna was a member of the Board of the Estonian Environmental Investment Centre and in from 2003–2007, he was a member of Tartu City Council. Margus Tsahkna has been a member of Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (IRL) since 2000 and has held the roles of Chairman of Noor-Isamaa, Political Secretary, Secretary General and Vice Chairman. Born in Tartu on 13 April 1977, Margus Tsahkna graduated from Tartu Secondary School No. 7. He studied in the faculty of theology and the faculty of law in the University of Tartu, and studied international law in the University of Toronto.

Antigoni Pericleous Papadopoulou is a member of the Democratic Party (DIKO-Cyprus), and since 1994 has been the President of the Women Organization of the Democratic Party (GODIK). She is a former member of the European Parliament (S&D) (2009-2014) and she was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (2001 – 2009). She holds a Postgraduate Degree in Social Sciences (Gender Equality) from the University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece. During her political career, Antigoni was the first elected female Mayor of Morphou (1996-2001). She was previously a member of the House of Representatives and of the Municipal Council of Strovolos. Since 1994 she has been a member of the National Machinery for Women’s Rights, and since 1994 has been co-ordinator of the Committee on European Affairs. She is also a member of the Central Committee and the Executive Bureau of the Democratic Party DIKO (1978-present) and since 2011 President of the Non-Governmental Organization “Palmos Zois” (Pulse of Life). Antigoni was granted various scholarships by Fulbright, Lancaster University and the British Council and received distinctions in her post graduate degrees and honours for her parliamentary work at the European Parliament. She was one of the first two Cypriot women elected as Members of the European Parliament (2009), the first female Chair of the Committee of Economic Affairs and Budgeting of the House of Representatives, Cyprus (2006–2009).

Jiří Dienstbier, Minister for Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation of the Czech Republic is a long-time member of ČSSD and served as the chairman of the Young Social Democrats for two years. From 1990–1992 he was a member of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly; from 1994 to 1998 and again from 2006 member of the Prague 2 district council. In July 2010, Jiří Dienstbier became the Shadow Minister of Justice for ČSSD. In 2010 he headed the ČSSD list of candidates for the elections to the Prague City Assembly and from March 2011 to March 2013, served as the Vice-Chairman of ČSSD. In March 2011, he was elected the Senator for the Kladno district. Before becoming Minister in January 2014, Jiří Dienstbier served as the Vice-Chairman of the ČSSD Senate Club and a member of the Legal and Constitutional Committee and Organisation Committee of the Czech Senate. He was also a member of the Standing Senate Commission on the Czech Constitution and Parliamentary Procedures. In 2013, he ran for the Office of the President of the Czech Republic. In January 2014, Jiří Dienstbier was appointed Minister of Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation and Chairman of the Government´s Legislative Council in the Government of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. In 2014, he was re-elected to the Senate in the Kladno district.

Kira Appelis Chief Adviser and Deputy Head of Department at the Gender Equality Unit in the Ministry of Children, Education and Gender Equality of Denmark, and has been working with gender equality issues in eight different ministries over the last 16 years. Kira’s areas of expertise are governmental gender equality policy-making, including combating violence in close relations, trafficking in human beings, gender roles and breaking down of gender stereotypes, the gender segregated educational system and labour market, gender mainstreaming, men and gender equality, as well as international negotiations on gender equality. Kira is a Board member and member of the Standing Committee in the European Institute for Gender Equality, a member of the Board of the Nordic Council of Ministers gender equality executive committee, Denmark’s representative to the EU/High Level Group, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the Danish National Focal Point on Gender Equality to the Council of Europe, as well as the Vice-Chairperson of the Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe.

Anne Nègreis a doctor of law, lawyer and mediator who teaches in the Law Faculty at the University of Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne. She played an active part in the French constitutional reform on parity, the amendment of the Lisbon Treaty concerning gender equality and the work at the EU concerning women’s position on boards. She chairs various women’s associations and previously headed an INGO with federations or associations in 70 countries, GWI, of which University Women of Europe is a member, and stood for election to the post of Gender Expert of the Conference of INGOs in January 2015.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, a career diplomat in the rank of Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the 1st class, entered the Foreign Service in 1992. He has held various diplomatic posts in Ukraine, Belgium, and the United States, including head of the Council of Europe Desk; second, first secretary (political), Embassy of Ukraine in Brussels, and Mission of Ukraine to NATO; contact point for WEU-Ukraine; Chief of Staff of the Foreign Minister; Minister-counsellor, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy to the USA. In 2006-2014 Sergiy Kyslytsya held the post of Director-general of the Directorate for International Organizations at the MFA of Ukraine. In March, 2014 he was appointed as Deputy Foreign Minister. From 2007-2011 Sergiy Kyslytsya was a member of the Steering Committee for the Equality between Women and Men (CDEG) of the Council of Europe (CoE), as well as of its Bureau. In 2012 he was elected to the Gender Equality Commission of the CoE and has been its Vice-Chair in 2012-2013, and Chair since July 2014. Sergiy Kyslytsya has a degree in International Law cum laude. He speaks Ukrainian, English, Russian and Spanish. Currently he resides with his son, Ian, in Kyiv (Ukraine).

Pauline Moreau retired in 2014 after a long career in the Irish Civil Service, with over 40 years of service in a wide range of roles and Departments (Ministries). Pauline served as a Director in Ireland’s Department of Justice and Equality since 2000, heading its Gender Equality Division since 2005. In that capacity, she oversaw the development and implementation of Ireland's National Women's Strategy 2007 - 2016 and the Gender Equality Programme within the Irish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers in 2013. Pauline also represented Ireland in a number of international fora on gender issues and served as Ireland’s representative on the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Equality between men and women (CDEG), its Bureau and subsequently on the Gender Equality Commission. In her retirement, Pauline continues to chair the Management Board of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in Vilnius in a voluntary capacity, while she has also undertaken some consultancy work in the gender equality field.

Marina Kaljurand has been the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia since 16 July 2015. She is not affiliated with any political party. From 2014 to 2015, Marina Kaljurand served as the Foreign Ministry’s Undersecretary for Legal and Consular Affairs and before that, as the Undersecretary for Political Affairs. She was also the Estonian expert at the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Cyber Security. From 2011 to 2014, Marina Kaljurand was the Estonian ambassador to the United States and Mexico and in 2011-2013 also to Canada. From 2008 to 2011, she was the Undersecretary for Foreign Economic Relations and Development Aid at the Foreign Ministry. From 2007 to 2011, Marina Kaljurand has a rich diplomatic career and has served as Estonian ambassador to Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Israel. From 2002 to 2005, she was the Undersecretary for Legal and Consular Affairs and Legal Adviser at the Foreign Ministry. Between 1999 and 2001, she was the Director General of the Legal Department at the Ministry. From 1996 to 1999, she was the counsellor at the Estonian Embassy in Helsinki. Prior to this, Marina Kaljurand was the Director of the International Treaties Division in the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 1996, and III secretary of the Press and Information Department in 1991. From 1986 to 1991, she was a lecturer of law at the Tallinn Economic Technical School. Marina Kaljurand has a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Tartu. She has also graduated from the Estonian School of Diplomacy and has an M.A. in international law and diplomacy from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Appendix IV - Recommendations of the Council of Europe’s

Committee of Ministers on Gender Equality Issues

· Recommendation No. R (79) 10 of the Committee of Ministers to member states concerning women migrants

· Recommendation No. R (81) 6 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the participation of women and men in an equitable proportion in committees and other bodies set up in the Council of Europe

· Recommendation No. R (84) 17 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on equality between women and men in the media

· Recommendation No. R (85) 2 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on legal protection against sex discrimination

· Recommendation No. R (90) 4 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the elimination of sexism from language

· Make equality in law a reality in fact Recommendation No. R (96) 5 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on reconciling work and family life

· Recommendation No. R (98) 14 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming

· Recommendation No. R (2000) 11 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on action against trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation

· Recommendation CM Rec(2002)5 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the protection of women against violence

· Recommendation CM Rec(2003)3 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision making

· Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)13 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming in education

· Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)17 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender equality standards and mechanisms

· Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the inclusion of gender differences in health policy

· Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)10 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the role of women and men in conflict prevention and resolution and in peace building

· Recommendation CM/Rec(2012)6 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the rights of women and girls with disabilities

· Recommendation CM/Rec(2013)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender equality and media

· Recommendation CM/Rec(2015)2 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming in sport

Appendix V - Gender Equality Events organised to support the Transversal Programme

2016

· Conference 2016 ‘Are we there yet? Assessing progress, inspiring action – the Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017’

Tallinn, Estonia, 30 June – 1 July 2016

· ‘Protecting human rights of women refugees and asylum seekers’ - Council of Europe Side-Event at the 60th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women

New York, 14 March 2016

· Council of Europe Seminar ‘Combating Sexist Hate Speech’

Strasbourg, 10 – 12 February 2016

2015

· Conference 2015 ‘Towards guaranteeing equal access of women to justice’
Bern, Switzerland, 15-16 October 2015

‘Gender Stereotypes and Sexism - root causes of discrimination and violence against women’ - Council of Europe Side-Event at the 59^th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women
New York, 9 March 2015

2014

· Conference 2014 ‘Combating Gender Stereotypes in and through Education’
Helsinki, 9-10 October 2014

· ‘Tackling the gaps in research and the lack of data disaggregated by sex concerning women’s equal access to justice’
Paris, 26-27 June 2014

· ‘Sport without fear - our concern, our response’,
Helsinki, 14 June 2014

2013

· Seminar on ‘Access to Justice for Women Victims of Violence’
Paris, 9 December 2013

· Conference 2013 ‘Media and the Image of Women’
Amsterdam, 4-5 July 2013

Appendix VI – Recent Council of Europe Publications relating to Gender Equality

Gender Equality

· Council of Europe Gender Equality Glossary (2016)

· Gender Equality and Women’s Rights – Council of Europe Key Standards (2015)

· Non-exhaustive list and description of available glossaries (2015)

· Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy 2014 – 2017 (2014)

Combating gender stereotypes and sexism

· Report of the Council of Europe 2016 seminar on ‘Combating Sexist Hate Speech’ (2016)

· Background Note on Sexist Hate Speech (2016)

· Report of the Conference ‘Combating Gender Stereotypes in and through Education' Helsinki, October 2014 (2015)

· Handbook on the Implementation of Recommendation CM/Rec (2013)1 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on gender equality and media (2015)

· Compilation of key challenges and good practices on gender equality and the media at national level (2014)

· Report of the Conference “Media and the Image of Women” Amsterdam, July 2013 (2013)

· Women and Journalists First – A challenge to media professionals to realise democracy in practice, quality in journalism and an end to gender stereotyping (2013)

· MARS – Media against Racism in Sport – Guide for Journalists (EU and Council of Europe joint project) (2012)

· Compilation of good practices on gender equality in education (2012)

· Study on ‘Combating Stereotypes in Education’ (2011)

Preventing and combating violence against women

· Ensuring data collection and research: Article 11 of the Istanbul Convention (2016)

· Encouraging the participation of the private sector and the media: Article 17 of the Istanbul Convention (2016)

· Domestic and sexual violence perpetrator programmes: Article 16 of the Istanbul Convention (2015)

· Prevention of violence against women: Article 12 of the Istanbul Convention (2014)

· Raising awareness of violence against women: Article 13 of the Istanbul Convention (2014)

· Amnesty International and Council of Europe Guide on the Istanbul Convention as a tool to end Female Genital Mutilation (2014)

· Analytical study of the results of the fourth round of monitoring the implementation of Recommendation Rec(2002)5 on the Protection of Women against Violence (2014)

· Overview of studies on the Costs of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (2012)

Guaranteeing the equal access of women to justice

· Report of the Conference: Towards guaranteeing equal access to justice for women October 2015 (2016)

· Compilation of good practices from member states to reduce existing obstacles and facilitate women’s access to justice (2015)

· Equal access to justice in the case law on violence against women before the European Court of Human Rights (2015)

· Compilation of contributions from member states on Key Challenges and Good Practices on Access to Justice for Women Victims of Violence at the National Level (2014)

· Feasibility Study on Equal Access of Women to Justice (2013)

Promoting gender mainstreaming in all policies and measures in the Council of Europe

· Gender Mainstreaming Policy Briefs and Council of Europe Activities (2016)

· Manual supporting Gender Equality Rapporteurs (GERs) in their Role (2014)

[1] See Appendix IV for more detail

[2]Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)17

[3] Op. cit. : p 9

[4]United Nations: Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: September 2015

[5]http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/outcomes

[6] Op cit.

[7]European Commission: Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality 2016-2019: published 2015

[8]UNECE: ECE/AC.28/2014/2: p. 6

[9] See Appendix VI for the listing of recent publications

[10] ECRI General Recommendation No. 15: Adopted December 2015

[11]Report of the Conference ‘Combating Gender Stereotypes in and through Education’ published in 2015

[12]Council of Europe: GEC (2015)1 EN Conference on “Combating gender stereotypes in and through education” (Helsinki, 9-10 October 2014): p. 81

[13] Ibid p. 87

[14] Op. cit.

[15]Recommendation CM/Rec(2013)1of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender equality and media.

[16] See the report of the Council of Europe Conference “Media and the image of women” (Amsterdam, 4-5 July 2013): p. 15

[17] See Factsheet of the European Court of Human Rights on Hate Speech, at http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/FS_Hate_speech_ENG.pdf

[18]International Women’s Media Foundation/International News Safety Institute: https://www.iwmf.org/ blog/2014/03/07/executive-summary/

[19]Council of Europe 2011: Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence

[20] For more information see http://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/grevio

[21]Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy 2014 – 2017: p. 11

[22] GEC Report (GEC (2016)5: Conference: Towards Guaranteeing Equal Access to Justice for Women: p.18 (published September 2016)

[23] PACE; Resolution 2111 (2016)

[24] See CDL-PI(2016)007 European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission) Compilation of Venice Commission Opinions and Reports concerning Gender Equality

[25]International Telecommunications Union

[26]Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)5 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on Internet freedom

[27] Recommendation CM/Rec(2016)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the protection of journalism and safety of journalists and other media actors

[28]http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/

[29]http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-155105

[30] See also the Recommendations from the Council of Europe Conference “Media and the image of women” (Amsterdam, 4-5 July 2013). Link: https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=0900001680590587

[31] On Freedom of Expression.

[32] Commission on the Status of Women: March 2015: Review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly : Report of the Secretary-General

[33]UNECE: ECE/AC.28/2014/3: Beijing+20 Regional Review Meeting: Geneva, 2014: Regional review of progress: regional synthesis

[34] Dr Elisabeth Prügl: Presentation to the Conference in Tallinn

[35] Ib id

[36]Recommendation No. CM/Rec (1998)14 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming; Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)13 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming in education; Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the inclusion of gender differences in health policy; Recommendation CM/Rec(2013)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender equality and media; and Recommendation CM/Rec(2015)2 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender mainstreaming in sport

[37]Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)17 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on gender equality standards and mechanisms

[38] Ibid: Section C.1 – paras 62-65

[39] Ibid: Section A.3 Para 8 ix

[40]Resolution CM/Res(2011)24

[41] See P 5 above for more detail

[42]Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport: Council of Europe Structure, established 2007

[43] World Bank Group Gender Strategy (FY16-23): Gender Equality, Poverty Reduction and Future Growth

[44] Op. cit.: p 22

[45] Op. cit.: Appendix 4

[46]http://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/

[47]Presentation by Dr Alba Alonso Alvarez

[48]Council of Europe: Gender Budgeting Practical Implementation Handbook 2008 (https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=0900001680599885)

[49]http://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming

[50] Op. cit. (2007)

[51]Standing Committee on Equality between Women and Men (predecessor to the GEC)

[52]Combating gender stereotypes and sexism; Preventing and combating violence against women; Achieving balanced participation in political and public decision-making; and Achieving gender mainstreaming in all policies and mesures

[53]UNHCR: Global Trends: Forced Displacement 2015: p 14; Table 1

[54]Eurostat: Asylum Statistics: March 2016: commentary

[55] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: European Parliament, Strasbourg, 8 March 2016: “Women refugees and asylum seekers in the European Union.”

[56]Eurostat: ib.id

[57]European Commissioner for Human Rights: 07 Mar 2016: “Human rights of refugee and migrant women and girls need to be better protected”