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| The National Council of Women Annual General Meeting “Towards a regeneration for the Future” |
| NCW Malta Annual General Meeting 2021 was held at The Palace Hotel Sliema on Thursday 22 July 2021 In her opening address, outgoing NCW President, Mary Gaerty, called on the Assembly to join her in a prayer for past members of NCW, for those who lost their life due to the Covid-19 and for the women whose lives were taken away due to femicide, which saw an increase during Covid-19. |
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| Elimination of Violence against Women - 16 Days of Activism |
| Elimination of violence against women – 16 Days of Activism.
You too can do something about it!
The 25th of November is the kick off date for the annual international campaign of 16 days of activism against Gender Based Violence. It starts on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and runs till the 10th of December, Human Rights Day . |
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| Human dignity should be respected at all times. |
| The National Council of Women would like to express its concern about the video posted online portraying men pelting a woman with eggs during a stag party. Human dignity should be respected at all times. As a society, we should condemn any type of abuse even if this is done by consent for financial gain. |
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| OSCE/ODIHR anti-trafficking survey for survivors of trafficking in human beings |
| The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has received numerous responses and has decided to extend the submission due date for the survey of survivors of human trafficking to Monday 26 August 2019. |
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| NEW TASK FORCE AT EUROPOL TO TARGET THE MOST DANGEROUS CRIMINAL GROUPS INVOLVED IN HUMAN TRAFFICKING |
| On 2 July, the Joint Liaison Task Force Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings (JLT-MS) was launched at Europol. This new operational platform will allow liaison officers from all EU Member States to step up the fight against constantly adapting criminal networks. |
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| Malta is EU country with highest rate of tertiary education graduates in employment |
| A report in the Independent states that Malta stood above the EU average in 2018 when it came to the employment rate of graduates aged 20-34 who had attained a tertiary level education within the previous three years, |
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| European Commission |
| On 2 July 2019, Ursula von der Leyen was nominated by the European Council to the position of President of the European Commission; she will be the first women and the first German since Walter Hallstein |
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| Equal opportunities and access to the labour market |
| 1. Education, training and life-long learning
Everyone has the right to quality and inclusive education, training and life-long learning in order to maintain and acquire skills that enable them to participate fully in society and manage successfully transitions in the labour market.
2. Gender equality
Equality of treatment and opportunities between women and men must be ensured and fostered in all areas, including regarding participation in the labour market, terms and conditions of employment and career progression.
Women and men have the right to equal pay for work of equal value.
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| The gender pay gap in the EU and the European Pillar of #SocialRights |
| 1. The gender pay gap in the EU is 16.2%, that’s 16.2% higher than it should be! Gender equality is the second key principle of the European Pillar of #SocialRights for a reason
2. The European Pillar of #SocialRights supports the right to equal treatment and opportunities regarding employment, social protection, education, and access to goods and services available to the public. Something NCW Malta has supported since its creation! |
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| Gender Equality in the Media Sector |
| This study was commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for
Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on
Women's Rights and Gender Equality. It examines key elements of the European
policy agenda pertaining to gender equality in the media sector. It also reviews
existing research on women's representation within media content and the media
workforce. The study provides analysis of actions to promote gender equality in
the media at both EU and Member State levels. Finally, it presents case studies
of gender equality in the media sector in four Member States: Austria, Malta,
Sweden, and the UK. |
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| Empowering women and girls in media and ICT |
| On the occasion of the International Women's Day, the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender
Equality is holding an inter-parliamentary committee meeting on empowering women and girls in
media and ICT. The meeting, which will bring together EU institutional representatives, members of
EU national parliaments, experts and stakeholders, will take place on 08 March 2018.
The presentation and debates will deal with the topics of women shaping media, empowering women
and girls through digital inclusion and women’s movements and advancing equality in the digital age. |
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| Digital healthcare / health insurance |
| In the view of the EESC, given the digital revolution in the field of health, it is vital to maintain and promote a health insurance system which serves the needs of everyone, and is solidarity-based, inclusive and non-discriminatory. Inclusion and fair access for all to good quality health services (digital or otherwise) and commitment to these are in fact prerequisites for universal health coverage. |
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| Gender equality in European labour markets |
| In order to improve gender equality in labour markets, the EESC considers it necessary to draw up an integrated and ambitious European strategy to tackle systemic and structural obstacles and lead to adequate policies, measures and EU funding programmes for improving equality between women and men, thus fostering "more equal economic independence of women and men" . This would also contribute to the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights. |
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| Services to the family |
| Developing services in private homes in order to achieve a better work-life balance
Every family has a home and clothes to maintain, meals to prepare, children to care for, elderly parents or ill or disabled family members who need help. Women often have to work part-time in order to carry out these tasks, missing out on the career for which they have trained or on time they would use for training. |
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| Women and girls digital gender gap |
| This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the FEMM Committee, attempts to reveal the links between the different factors (access, skills, socio-economic and cultural), which prevent women from having equal access to digital technology. It then suggests ways of dealing with online and offline inequalities to the effect of closing the digital gender gap and improving women’s and girls’ digital inclusion and future technology-related career paths. |
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| Plastics, human health and environmental impacts: The road ahead |
| Plastics have been with us for more than a century, and by now they’re everywhere, for good and for ill. Plastic containers and coatings help keep food fresh, but they can also leave behind neurotoxins such as BPA in the human body. PVC is used for everything from pipes and flooring to furniture and clothes, but it contains compounds called phthalates that have been implicated in male reproductive disorders. Studies have also shown that childhood exposure to environmental pollutants can have significant negative effects later in life, including reduced labor force participation and even earnings. |
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| European Commission aims to significantly reduce the gender pay gap |
| The European Commission plans to use a series of measures aimed at significantly reducing the pay gap between men and women over the next five years. The average gender pay gap in the EU currently stands at 18%. To lower this rate, the Commission plans to raise awareness among employers, encourage initiatives to promote gender equality and support the development of tools to measure the gender pay gap. |
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| NCW Annual General Meeting 2019 |
| NCW Annual General Meeting 2019
The Annual General Meeting of the National Council of Women was held on Saturday 26th January 2019, at The Victoria Hotel, Sliema. President Mary Gaerty spoke about the work which the Council has embarked on during 2018. This included pensions, education, violence against women, work and entrepreneurship, work life balance and the challenges faced by women on a daily basis.
She also highlighted the fact that the National Council of Women is looking ahead at the constant changes |
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| Work-life Balance |
| Better work-life balance for EU citizens: Presidency reaches provisional agreement with the European Parliament |
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| The National Council of Women supports the Act to provide protection for human embryos |
| NCW has always advocated for legislation of alternative IVF treatment not least because of the sensitivity and the consequences for both parents and society if it had to remain unregulated. NCW believes that IVF treatment should be for heterosexuals within a stable family environment The Council has always supported the protection of embryos as the first cell of a human life and, with the development of alternative treatment over the past years this has become possible successfully. |
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| Women on Boards: Vice-President Viviane Reding meets with leaders of Europe's business schools and i |
| Today, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding met with European Industry Associations, European Business Schools and Senior Executive Women to discuss progress being made on improving the gender balance in company boardrooms.
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| UfM adopts new project to support women’s empowerment in the Mediterranean |
| A project aimed at developing women’s empowerment in the Mediterranean through the development of effective field projects and the setting up of networks and platforms, was adopted by Senior Officials of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) at a meeting held last month. |
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| Date: 16/05/2011 |
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Youth on the Move – starting on the journey through life For many young people in Europe, the final years of school and the transition from education into work present major challenges. The economic crisis has only increased the obstacles they face in obtaining the skills and qualifications needed to secure a satisfying job and a secure place in society. And yet, Europe must enable its young people to realise their potential if it is to achieve sustainable growth, offset the impact of demographic change, and sustain its place as a leading knowledge economy at global level. The European Economic and Social Committee has long been aware that young people hold the key to the future, and of the need to involve them in decisions that affect their lives. Through a series of recent opinions, it has alerted European policy-makers to the need to boost young people's participation in education, employment and society, to promote learning mobility across the EU, and to integrate them more smoothly into the labour market. So the EESC was quick to welcome the emphasis on young people in the EU’s Europe 2020 growth strategy, and the flagship initiative Youth on the Move, which outlines measures to implement it. Action on several fronts Youth on the Move highlights four areas of action: lifelong learning and the recognition of skills acquired outside the formal educational framework; increasing the number of students in higher education; boosting EU-wide mobility for study and employment; and helping young people into work. Such action is urgent. Young people make up one-fifth of the EU’s population of 500 million. Yet the average unemployment rate for under-25s is almost 21% (30-40% in some countries), representing a shocking waste of human potential. One in seven fails to complete secondary education, and one in four has poor reading ability. Less than one in three Europeans has a university degree, compared with 50% of Japanese. Europe 2020’s headline targets include cutting the school drop-out rate to 10% and boosting tertiary education to 40%. Already, in an opinion of 2008, the EESC called for a coherent EU youth strategy with measures to "get young people into work on a massive scale", while warning against casual jobs with no prospects. It further recognised that the social partners – employers and trade unions – have a major responsibility for integrating young people into the labour market. In 2009, responding to the EU Strategy for Youth, the Committee stressed the need to develop European policies not only for youth but with youth, strengthening links between school, work and voluntary activities. And in December that year it called for barriers to mobility to be lifted, so as to create a common European lifelong learning area. Caution against cuts Many of these elements are reiterated in the EESC’s opinion on Youth on the Move, which warns against austerity cuts that undermine the very provisions of most value to the young, including social rights, training and the creation of stable jobs. "The Committee is afraid that the cuts will continue to affect the provision of quality and affordable education and training services to young people – which are the best means of accessing a good job," explains Vice-President Anna Maria Darmanin. "Job insecurity affects young people more than any other group. The EESC stresses the importance of maintaining and increasing, wherever possible, the resources assigned at national and EU level to the education, training and employment of young people. It particularly emphasises the need to increase the use of the European Social Fund. The accessibility and size of grants should be prioritised, and the procedure for granting loans carefully examined, as it is important to prevent young people from becoming trapped in a spiral of debt." The opinion calls for more emphasis on non-discrimination, including measures to combat wage inequalities between young men and women, overcome the barriers young migrants face in the labour market, and address the needs of disadvantaged young people. And it also points out that getting involved in civil society contributes to personal development. "Voluntary activities can help young people develop important features like entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, team-spirit, problem-solving skills, language skills, multicultural awareness, solidarity, and a sense of initiative and responsibility," argues Anna Maria Darmanin. "A database with vacancies for traineeships in citizens' organisations should be developed and included in the existing youth websites." Working with young people Young people need to "take ownership" of the policies affecting them, she adds. The EESC has transformed this commitment into practical action. For the last two years, the Your Europe, Your Say! event in Brussels has brought school students from all the Member States to the heart of Europe. Just as important as the event itself is the preparation, with Committee members visiting schools in their own countries to talk about the EU and the role of civil society. Some 5 million young Europeans are currently looking for work. Not only their personal welfare, but also Europe’s progress towards a knowledge economy with high social standards, depend on their success. |
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