The European Centre of the International Council of Women |
The European members of ICW form the European Centre of the International Council of Women (ECICW) which has members from National Councils of Women in 22 European countries, both within and outside the European Union. Grace Wedekind, Chair of ICWGB, is the current elected President of ECICW. ECICW meets twice yearly in member countries to discuss action on issues of common concern, and takes part in meetings of the Council of Europe, the European Fundamental Rights Agency, and the European Women's Lobby in Brussels. ECICW also seeks to extend contacts with women from the former Eastern Europe. Recent ECICW meetings have taken place in Brussels, Malta and Italy. The last meeting in Britain was in 2008 when Theresa May, MP (then Shadow Minister for Women) and Jean Lambert, MEP were among the speakers, together with a representative from the Government Equalities Office, and representatives from European National Councils of Women. ECICW seminars have covered Women in Parliament, Equality in Decision-making, Domestic Violence, and Food Safety. Visits have also been made to the European Parliament in Brussels, to the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and to the European Food Safety Authority in Parma, Italy. Working Groups have been held on the gender pay gap, and on the effect of the global economic crisis on women. ECICW has sent agreed Recommendations to the European Commission and to European members of Parliament on trafficking in women, contemporary forms of child abuse, women in war, and domestic violence. Most recently a resolution on the commercial exploitation and sexualisation of children has been drawn up.
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European Women's Lobby (EWL) |
The EWL was founded in 1980 to allow the women's organisations of Europe to play an active role in shaping the European framework for gender equality. NCWGB has been involved in its work since the beginning through our membership of the ECICW, one of the founding members of the European Women's Lobby. Much work has been done on Violence against Women and Trafficking in Women, and conditions of employment for women. Concern at present focuses on the effects of the global economic recession on women. The ECICW elected Board member to the European Women's Lobby (2006 - 2010) has been Grace Wedekind, a former President of NCWGB. ECICW and its member European National Councils have played a full role in the work of EWL for many years, recently in the European-wide efforts to secure more equal representation of women in the European and National Parliaments. The most recent EWL meeting was held in Madrid with a seminar on "Feminism in the 21st Century", examining changes in attitudes to feminism.
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