Mediterranean women urged to form partnership

Anton Tabone, Speaker of the House of Representatives, said women from the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean should meet so as to establish a solid and long lasting partnership between countries along the Mediterranean littoral.

The Mediterranean lacks such a set-up but, he added, the structures of the future Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean will incorporate a special task force on gender and equality issues.

Mr Tabone, who was speaking in Sliema yesterday at a seminar on Women's Rights in the Mediterranean, organised by the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies of the University of Malta, said that the protection and promotion of the human rights of women should be given high priority both at the bilateral and multilateral level.

The aim should be to increase gender awareness in Mediterranean society and to make full use of women's visions, competence, experience and potential.

He said women in the Mediterranean should make direct representations with their own governments to effectively implement the recommendations outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Declaration and its Platform for Action and the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to member states on balanced participation of women and men in political and public decision making.

Mediterranean women should organise themselves to make their voices heard in the United Nations Fifth World Conference on Women, scheduled to take place by the year 2010, he said.