Φεμινιστικό Δίκτυο

FEMINIST NET

End Female Genital Mutilation
A European Campaign by Amnesty International Ireland

http://www.endfgm.eu

Sign the petition:
http://www.ipetitions.com/ petition/declarationofsupp ort/index.html

First, we would like to congratulate you on your positioning as the General Secretary of Equality. We wish you every success in your difficult task.
Unfortunately, women in our country face a great number of problems, many of which are especially hard to solve. Perhaps, the worst of these problems is domestic violence that consists in every threat or violent act - physical, sexual or psychological - against women.
The Greek legislation has never passed a special law, a law on domestic violence. We have been pointing out, for many years now, the legislation gap on this issue and we have urged all the previous governments to consider the passing of a special law.
Moreover, there is a serious lack of specialized services which women who are victims of violence could ask for help.
With this letter, we would like to urge you, as the General Secretary, to take all the necessary measures and to act in every possible way, in order to cover immediately for both the legislation gap and the lack of services.
We would like to thank you in advance and we hope that your government will meet immediately the expectations of the feminist movement in our country and – above all – the needs of all women.

25th NOVEMBER: INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Violence against women is one of the most serious problems, not only because this problem concerns half of the population of the earth but also because it usually occurs with great intensity and it has many different forms.
All over the world women struggle for the securing of their rights, for the upgrading of their position in society and especially for the elimination of sexist violence.
This violence is founded upon the unequal relationship between the two sexes, to the yielding and the degrading of women. The sexist violence has not been eliminated in countries that have already secured the basic rights of women, because the societies are still patriarchal and the mentalities of people are still sexist.
In our country we observe that there are a lot of gaps in legislation on combating the problem of violence against women and there is also lack of services, which women can address.
Today the feminist movement fights for the covering of the legislation gaps wherever there are, for example domestic violence, sexual harassment in the work place, and also the availability of the special services to the women - victims of violence.
Believing that the best way of facing of this problem is its prevention, we address you, every active and sensitive civilian, and we ask you to demonstrate the so called “zero tolerance” to violence.
Violence against women will truly and completely be eliminated when it stops taking place and stops being tolerated in our society; only when everyone understands that our differencies can be solved peacefully, only when everyone stands critically and disapprovingly against phenomena of sexist violence and against the whole phenomenon of the sexism and of the yielding of women.
The sexist violence can be defeated only if we, all, remain alert.

It is already known that the problem of domestic violence and of the abusing of women has acquired worrying dimensions in our country too.

Its consequences in the life of women and of minors are especially negative and destroy every effort of the emancipation of women and of the equality of the sexes.

We urge your government to take measures of prevention and of combating this problem.

Expecially, we ask for:
? Sufficient and suitable legal framework
? Courts specializing in cases of domestic violence
? Educating of the specialists and of the vehicles involved in the problem
? Creating the suitable infrastructure for the protection of the victims (refugees for abused women)

There are already propositions for all of them. Make sure your government sees to their materialization.

CAMPAIGN FOR THE PROHIBITION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION IN THE CONSTITUTION

Within the framework of the campaign for the prohibition of all forms of discrimination in the Constitution of our country, the Feminist Network sent the following letters to the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Parliament and all the parliamentarian parties and asks you to take part in this campaign by sending similar letters.
You can use as drafts the letters sent by Feminist Network.
Let us take action now, otherwise we’ll have to wait for several more years.

You can reach the Speaker of the Parliament at the following e-mail address: labenakis@parliament.gr.

You can contact the Parliamentary Group of the Synaspismos Party at this e-mail address: syn@parliament.gr

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
According to your proclamations, your government is ready to proceed to the revision of our country’s Constitution.
On this occasion, we will like to ask you for the inclusion of the following article:
“Any discrimination, especially those based on sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin,, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited.”
This proposed article corresponds with article 21 of the Fundamental Rights Charter of the European Union (2000).
We would also like to mention that our country has ratified several international and European treaties and conventions, by right of which all forms of discrimination are prohibited and more specifically the following:

-Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
-European Convention of Human Rights
-Fundamental Rights Charter of the European Union, 2000
-Constitutional Treaty of the European Union, 2005
-International Agreement for the obliteration of any discrimination against Women, 1979 (it prohibits any discrimination against Women)
-International Agreement on Civil and Political Rights, 1997 (it prohibits any discrimination on political and civil rights)

Finally, we would like to stress that, for a country, the protection of all persons against all forms of discrimination is a mark of democracy, humanity and civilization.

On the draft letters to the Speaker of the parliament, the Parliamentary Groups of the Parties and the members of the Parliament, the following changes shall be made to the first two paragraphs:

In accordance with the Prime Minister’s proclamations, a new revision of our country’s Constitution is imminent.
On this occasion, we would like to ask you to introduce, support and vote for the addition of an article in our Constitution, by right of which all forms of discrimination shall be prohibited, according to the European and international standards.

Dear Mr. Minister,
We learned from the April the 8th edition of “Eleutherotypia” newspaper that an incident of police sexual abuse took place at the police station of Ialysos, Rhodes involving a foreigner woman and victim of trafficking.
We certainly feel that the immediate intervention of Justice was very important to the handling of the case, the dismissal from the Police Force of the officers that participated in the abuse and the prosecution of the offenders.
However we feel as equally important the immediate taking of measures to forestall and prevent similar incidents in the future.
Thus we ask for the following:
-Education and continuous training of police officers on subjects of Human Rights and Rights of Women.
-The taking and application of the appropriate measures for the protection and support at the police stations all over the country of women-victims of violence and trafficking.
We hope that you, as the Minister in charge, will see to it promptly and you will guarantee the protection of and respect to the Human Rights of Women, in accordance with the international conventions, the Constitution and the laws of our country.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
We learned from the April the 8th edition of “Eleutherotypia” newspaper that an incident of police sexual abuse took place at the police station of Ialysos, Rhodes involving a foreigner woman and victim of trafficking.
We certainly feel that the immediate intervention of Justice was very important to the handling of the case, the dismissal from the Police Force of the officers that participated in the abuse and the prosecution of the offenders.
However we feel as equally important the immediate taking of measures to forestall and prevent similar incidents in the future.
Thus we ask for the following:
-Education and continuous training of police officers on subjects of Human Rights and Rights of Women.
-The taking and application of the appropriate measures for the protection and support at the police stations all over the country of women-victims of violence and trafficking.
We hope that you, as the head of the Government will see to it promptly and you will guarantee the protection of and respect to the Human Rights of Women, in accordance with the international conventions, the Constitution and the laws of our country.

in the context of the european campaign to combat violence against women, (domestic violence being included), that the European Council has proclaimed for 2007, we would like to sumbit the following requests:
First and most importantly, we would like you to denounce domestic violence as a violation of human rights, in the context of the public dialogue being held through Europe uppon this matter.
We would like also to ask you to encourage the Greek Parliament to take action and fight domestic violence, within the context of this european campaign.

Dear friends, Regarding the case of the rape of the 16 year old bulgarian student by her schoolmates, which happened in an under occupation school in the greek province, the Feminist Network sent the following letter to our country’s Prime Minister.

This letter concerns the case of rape of the 16 year old student by her schoolmates in an occupied school in Amarynthos, Evia. It is known that the case is in the court of justice and the public prosecutor has exerted penal prosecution for felony commitment against the four young students that have been accused of her rape. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education suggested the change of school environment for the accused students. It is rather sad, though that in the local community of Amarynthos the girl and its family have sustained racist attacks which forced them to move away from the area. Sir, we consider these phenomena unacceptable. We also consider unacceptable the multiple victimization of the girl. Moreover, we would like to emphasize on the fact that it is an under age individual that requires immediate protection and support by the official State. We address you and we ask you to take the case under serious consideration, so that the girl is provided every possible protection, security and support.

(MANY THANKS TO BABIS AKRIVOPOULOS AND JENNY PETINATOU FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE TRANSLATION OF THE TEXTS IN ENGLISH)

Dear friends,
Below is the protest letter that we have sent to the Greek Government, EU Commissioner, Greek National Committee of Human Rights, and ILGA – Europe about the legal recognition of homosexual relations in Greece.
A wider movement is imperative at this stage in order to exercise more pressure so as the Greek Government will adopt a non-discriminating and equal policy.
Irene Petropoulou and Spyridoula Skoutari

The Greek National Committee of Human Rights, Mr Kostis Papaioannou (info@nchr.gr)

European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Mr Vladimir Spidla (V.Spidla@eu.europa.eu)

ILGA EUROPE, Ms Ruth Baldacchino, Member of the Executive Board (info@ilga-europe.org)

In the beginning of this year the worldwide LGBT movement celebrated two more victories. The Parliaments of Hungary and Uruguay voted for the legal recognition of same sex relations, legalizing in this way spouse rights between same sex couples.

Two more countries have been added to the list of the countries that have institutionally providing legal rights to their lesbian and gay citizens. And the number of these countries is not short. Arithmetically speaking, they are most of the European countries and many more nations in our planet.

In spite of all this progress, our country, Greece, still denies any legal recognition or enactment that would legitimize same sex couples, despite the fact that the Greek National Committee of Human Rights have already in 2004 judged in favour of a law that would give marital status to the same sex couples too. The institutional recognition of same sex relations is considered integral to these fundamental rights.

We, as citizens of Greece and the European Union, have every right to merit equal rights within the frames of a non-discriminating policy. Also, we must stress the fact that denying the right of marriage to the lesbian and gay couples, just as heterosexual couples are enjoying, is the outmost discrimination and inequality in our country. Demanding legal recognition of same sex couples, we are asking for equality in every social and economic right under the marital law. Greece is still refraining to grand any legal recognition of lesbian and gay couples, with the consequence of a repeated discrimination and marginalization against these citizens.

We believe that the Greek Government should make every effort to enact laws that will give marital status and rights to homosexual couples and by and large promote a non discriminating policy for its homosexual citizens – who are taxpayers too.

End Female Genital Mutilation
A European Campaign by Amnesty International Ireland