Challenge of Social Justice

Looking for Equal Opportunities for Women in an Enlarged Europe

 

 

Implementing organisation: Ecumenical Forum of European Christian Women

 

Contact person: Elena Timofticiuc, Co-president of the EFECW

Partner Organisations:       UNDP, Romania; the National Agency against THB,

AIDRom-Ecumenical Association of Churches in Romania

Ecumenical Forum of Romanian Christian Women

 

Period of implementation:  March 2007 – December 2007

 

 

In Eastern European countries, the role of the women in society in not very well defined. In the last 10 years, women around Europe managed to improve their social status, to gain key positions in important companies, to earn good wages; but in some countries the society does not allow them to prove their skills and knowledge. This is the case of the East European countries, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia and Macedonia, were women are seen just as housewives or workers in the garment industry or in agriculture. They still have to struggle for emancipation and for equality in rights and in opportunities. The gender equality concept is not reputed.

 

Women living in high risk regions do not have access to vital information. There fore, when they choose to work abroad, they don’t use legal means of finding a job. Most of the times they are “helped” to cross the border by an acquaintance and in this way they get trafficked for labor or for sexual purposes or they find out that the labor contract is not valid.   

 

In this respect, the main objectives of this project were to inform and educate women regarding their rights, focusing on the labor market, and to promote the concept of equal opportunities in their communities. Women should be trained to develop life skills adapted to the new social and economic context in their regions; they should be supported and counselled by specialists on labor aspects; they should exchange opinions and information on subjects of major interest, such as: working conditions for women, women empowerment, labor migration and EU legislation, trafficking in women, women’s role in urban and rural community, education and job opportunities, globalisation and EU integration and their impact on women, etc.

 

The first activity was to organize a preparatory meeting. The round table organized in March, at AIDRom Conference Centre, aimed to establish the schedule and methods for implementing the project. 10 members of the EFECW participated in this preparatory meeting. Information was gathered from all local and regional partners, all the questions raised by regional coordinators were taken into consideration. Problems that occurred in different parts of the selected regions – such as mass migration for labor purposes, unequal access to the labor market for women, or the role of women in small communities - were discussed with the experts. The solutions given by the experts were found in the training with the representatives from Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia and Macedonia.

 

The working group of EFECW decided upon the content of the educational and informational materials; most of the materials were focused on labor migration, underlying the danger of trafficking in human beings and the lack of knowledge on labor rights on the European labor market, this leading to exploitation, discrimination and unequal treatment. 1.000 brochures were published in Romanian and in English.

 

During the meeting it was stressed that the easy, legal movement of persons within the new EU borders lead to the increase of different hidden forms of exploitation and trafficking, targeting young people from Eastern European countries.

 

Good practices on labor conditions and on labor rights were presented by the organizers, in order to give an example and to establish a regional working network, with common activities targeting the selected regions.

 

EFECW aimed to identify equal opportunities for women in the enlarged EU, by trying to create a framework for open discussions on gender topics, labor migration, living and working conditions and the specific trends in the transition period and initiate education programmes for women both, in urban and rural environment and to explain the phenomenon of globalisation and EU integration and their impact on societies.

 

In this respect, a training was organized between 27-28 June, in Iasi, Romania. Almost 40 persons, representing NGOs and members of the Ecumenical Forums of Christian Women from Romania, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Macedonia participated in this event.

 

The main themes of discussions were linked to phenomenon of labor migration: information regarding UE legislation on labor market and labor standards, promoting the concept of equal opportunities and finding methods of making visible the work of women in society, exchange of experience in working with EU bodies or NGOs, developing inter-regional partnerships, etc.

 

All the participants agreed to develop an action plan for the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, to have all necessary information about EU enlargement, know-how transfer, to understand EU mechanisms and to empower women NGOs from these countries to take actions and to participate in EU activities. All the participants from Republic of Moldova expressed their wish to have the follow-up meeting in Chisinau, in 2008, and to involved representatives of the local authorities also.

 

In the last day of the workshop, EFECW members offered their expertise and resources to train representatives of the Ecumenical Forum of Christian Women in Moldova and in Ukraine and to support them in their future work for information and education on equal opportunities on the labor market. Materials for raising awareness on labor migration and on trafficking were disseminated.

 

During the 3rd European Ecumenical assembly in Sibiu, 4-9 Sept., the working group of EFECW and the representatives from countries involved in the project had the evaluation meeting. Two hearings were held, on Gender stereotypes in Church and society and on Women’s vision on the new Europe – Migration impact and family life, and each group presented its conclusions related to the subject, supported by written and visual materials. Almost 300 women and men participated in these two hearings.

 

The importance of this meeting was underlined by the broader context, which convert it into a unique opportunity for the Christian women from Europe to present the work they have been carrying out within the Church and in society. There fore, the role of women in society, even in Eastern European countries, was restored once and for all.

 

 

 

Elena Timofticiuc,                                                                              December 2007

Project coordinator