Thematic session Gender Equality and Human Rights in Changing Societies concentrated on issues related to the new challenges on gender equality in rapidly changing societies: awareness, strategies, policies, actions, gains and losses nationally and internationally, multiculturalism, and problems like human trafficking and prostitution.
The session began with cultural program. Anne Kujanpää sang to her own words and accompaniment.
Outi Ojala, Member of the Finnish Parliament, opened the session. There were ca 100 participants in the session, representing NGOs, public authorities and networks around the Baltic Sea.
Four speakers enlightened the themes for the whole audience:
Gierde Purvaneckiene, Member of Lithuanian Parliament and President of the Baltic Assembly, spoke about the situation in Lithuania: "Society in Change - Is it Time for Gender Equality?" In spite of many positive changes in the status of women since 1990s and especially after 1995, when the IV UN World Conference on Women took place in Beijing, gender equality is not yet fully achieved. Gierde Purvaneckiene stated that according to her view the processes are showing signs of slowing down, and at the same time even backlashes can be noticed. She illustrated this statement using examples mainly from Lithuania, a country regarded as one of the most advanced in state policy in gender equality among the countries in transition.
Sigridur Lilly Baldursdottir, Researcher and Project Administrator from the State Social Security Institute, Iceland, presented a case study from Iceland: "Women's List as a Tool for Empowerment". She described how a women's political party took form in Iceland in the beginning of year 1982, and was successfully running for Parliament the same spring. "It was a grassroots' movement… and a feminist Party…and it was fun", she said. During the following years 1983-1995 they got 17 women elected to the parliament (total number of MPs 63).With their activities they contributed in creating a new political agenda where "Women's issues" became a visible part of the discussion. Important was, too, that more women in all parties became active in politics. She pointed out that the society is human activities and interactions made by humans, and that women should express their opinion, as they constitute half of the population. Women and men equally should contribute to the ongoing dialogue which structures and makes the society. In the end she discussed the possibility to introduce a women's political party in other countries and within other cultures and said that it "could be more than worth trying if…the electoral system makes it easy to build up new parties and if the representation of women in parliament is low (5-15%)."
Reet Nurmi, Researcher from MONIKA - Multicultural Women's Association & Women's Resource Center, Finland, gave a review of trafficking in women in Baltic Sea States.
Batulo Essak from Somali Association, Finland, told about her experiences as an immigrant woman in Russia and in Finland.
After the introductions to the themes, the participants split into three subgroups discussing following themes and preparing the final statement.
Group I, "New challenges in globalised world", was chaired by Carita Peltonen, Nordic Council of Ministers, Denmark and concentrated on three themes: trafficking in women, prostitution and media. In this group participated women from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Estonia, and Finland. The participants represented different kinds of women's help and research organisations, NGOs, labours unions and ministries.
The topics discussed covered the wideness of the problems of trafficking women and children inside societies and in different countries all over the world. A Russian participant told about the structure of the prostitution in her country, about the problem of the attitude that "prostitution is matter of free will" and about the patriarchal attitude of solving the problems of prostitution by legalizing it. There was also very good presentation of the problem's connections with globalisation and macro economical development. Regarding of this point of view liberalisation and fiscal austerity puts especially women in very difficult situation and forces them to find other ways to survive. There was also discussion about different ways of doing research on the problem and raising public awareness about the issue with campaigns, documents and publications. Also the role of the sex buyers was stressed. It was regarded that there should be ways of trying to disperse the nets of sex buyers. It is very important to reveal who those who get profit of sex business are: media, hotels, taxi drivers, pimps and sex shop owners. It was also regarded very important to create and develop ways of helping prostitutes in their juridical, psychological and health problems.
Human trafficking and its connection with internationally organized criminality was one of the topics discussed. Another theme was the language that is used in when discussing these issues, e.g. the expressions sex "services" and sex "work". The general opinion was that sex should be nobody's profession and shouldn't be considered as work at all. Media's role in creating attitudes towards sex business was seen very important and there was also discussion about changing men's attitude towards prostitution and paid sex. Prostitution should be seen as a human rights violation, not as choice made by the individuals. There were a few presentations about good practices concerning the ways of solving the problems mentioned above in different countries. In general it was seen that it is very much a question of men suppressing women and women lacking economical and political power. It was considered that to solve the problems of human trafficking and prostitution, much more financial resources and a lot of exchange of information between different countries, are needed.
The group I concluded that 1) the principle of mainstreaming should be a visible part of the activities of CBSS. 2) All governments in the Baltic Sea Region should adopt national action plans to stop trafficking in women and children and increase cooperation nationally, locally, and between governments, and to promote NGOs cross-border cooperation to end this. The NGOs are willing to exchange good practises e.g. on the internet, if funding is secured. 3) In the cooperation between NGOs, existing networks, and other organizations, good practises will be used to share information and to organize training on international, national and local level.
Group II, "Gender equality in social structures" was chaired by Outi Ojala, Member of Finnish Parliament. It concentrated on decision-making processes, equality in working life and education.
In group II participated women from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, and Russia, representing women's organisations, Turku city equality board, peace organisations, adult education, women's help organisations and politicians. The topics discussed where:
It was stressed that one important point to be always kept in mind, is to "be a winner", that is to have a positive attitude. Important, too, is that women remember to always actively support each other by voting women into parliament, city council and committees etc. and to remember to build networks, like phone call chains or e-mail lists. Women's quotas (40%) in politics and gender specific statistics are very important. The need for quotas in business life was discussed and suggestions were made that in the boards of public stock market business the quota systems should be used.
Equality in education was discussed, as in many countries the percentage of women professors and other academics is still low. It was suggested that this could be solved through positive discrimination allowing women to get jobs in academic world. Supporting the use of IT technology at home would give women more opportunities to work at home. Supporting informal and non-formal education, making education an integral part of the women's movement and educating women politically, are also ways of promoting equality in education.
In spite of legislation on gender equality and gender mainstreaming there are still problems with equality in decision making processes and in the way female politicians are portrayed in mass media. Following solutions were proposed: there should be campaigns on best practises on EU level as well as public awareness campaigns nationally; knowledge of tools and gender budgets should be raised, surveys and summaries should be done to raise awareness on them, networks should be built between parliamentarians and women's NGOs, and NGO pressure groups should be formed.
The grave situation in all countries concerning domestic violence and violence against women was discussed, and solutions were proposed as follows: legislation, training women self-defence, self-esteem and economical independence; training all parties involved, exchanging experiences and good practises in the work against trafficking, encouraging women to speak about their problems and increasing public awareness of the issue.
Group III, "Cultural diversity in society" was chaired by Kirsi Tarvainen, Attorney at law, Finland, and Batulo Essak, Somali Association, Finland. It concentrated on questions related immigration in the Baltic Sea Area, migrants' rights and cultural heritage.
After an introduction by Kirsi Tarvainen the group mapped problems and discussed solutions related to the life and social integration of immigrant women.
Women's roles are traditionally different in different countries and cultures. It was stressed that it therefore is very important to get to know about the legislation and rights when you arrive to a new country. Very often immigrant women do not know their rights and can be totally unaware of facts that are self evident for the locals. Sometimes their husbands make use of this by telling them lies, e.g. that they may loose their children if they divorce their husband, so they stay in a violent relationship. It was pointed out that women's rights always are connected to equality. In addition to knowledge networks, social contacts are important as it is essential to have someone to talk to especially when you are facing problems. It is important to create good contacts with the representatives of majority population as well as with other immigrants. To establish associations of immigrant women could be helpful in many ways.
One of the major problems immigrant women are facing is unemployment.
It was stressed that all kinds of problems should be on the agenda and discussed openly and that immigrant women should be encouraged to get involved in the work of political parties. It was stressed, too, that the cooperation between authorities should be more efficient. Finland is a country in transition when it comes to immigrant questions. NGOs have taken a considerable part of responsibility in reaching out and to working with immigrants. Information tehcnology can be used, and many existing channels and structures are useful.
In the end of the day the whole audience joined together for common conclusions of the thematic groups:
Proposals from the thematic group 4: Gender Equality and Human Rights in Changing Society
The theme seminar agreed with the words of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja: "I should like to emphasize that moving towards gender equality is not a technocratic goal - it is a political and social process. It requires a new way of thinking in which the stereotyping of women and men gives way to a new philosophy that regards all people, irrespective of sex, aas essential agents of change. CBSS has tried to work as such an agent by proposing the Northern Dimension Action Plan 2004 - 2006 to be gender mainstreamed so that both women and men are equal participants and beneficiaries in its programmes."
1. The workshop proposes that CBSS will gender mainstream its all programs and activities.
2. Support and enlarge networking using the existing NGO networks, associations and organisations and their best practises via existing information channels, homepages and newsletters locally, nationally and internationally. Special focus should be on the needs of immigrant women in all countries around the Baltic Sea.
3. All governments in the Baltic Sea Region should adopt national action plans to stop violence against women including trafficking in women and children, increase cooperation between governments nationally and locally and to promote NGOs cross border cooperation. The NGOs are willing to exchange good practises if funding is secured.