MOSAIC - The training kit for Euro-Mediterranean youth work

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to benefit from them. When this is the case, the de facto enjoyment of new rights is
restricted to a limited number of women, usually middle-class urban women, to the
exclusion of most poorer women and those living in non-urban areas. 92
Since the beginning of the 20th century, 8 March has been globally celebrated as
International Women’s Day, to highlight the issues, as well as the successes, of women’s
empowerment and the promotion of gender equality and equity.
The rest of this section looks at various major issues and problems in gender equality and
women’s rights that are shared by groups of women in European and Mediterranean
countries. These issues are to an extent tackled or neglected by national policies, but
they are always underlined by international actors, policies, actions and programmes.
Naturally, these issues are not mutually exclusive. They are mostly embedded in
similar societal, political and economic conditions and hence refer to the same root
causes. Any positive or negative changes in one issue also affect other issues, since
they are inter-related and interdependent.
D 6.5.1 Political and civic participation 93
Politics is often understood as a male sphere. This means that women are
viewed as a minority to be protected, rather than the under-represented half of
human society that they in fact are. 94
Dr Azza Karam
The participation and representation of women is maybe the most important component
of a democratic system, if women are to make their voices, preferences and problems
heard by the decision-makers and find participatory ways of overcoming inequalities
that they experience in their everyday lives. However, women’s political representation
and participation, in both the public and private spheres, has historically been very
low worldwide. In European and especially in Mediterranean countries, while women’s
participation and representation is undoubtedly increasing, women are still marginalised
in decision-making structures and many obstacles remain in their path. Although
constitutions often guarantee equal political rights (such as the right to stand for election
and the right to vote) for women and men in principle, women are not well represented
in parliaments, with the exception of the Nordic countries; there are very few
women ministers in governments, and women are not much encouraged to take
active roles in political parties.
In fact, there is not much difference between some northern and southern states: the
percentage of women in parliament in Morocco is 10.8%, compared with 11.5% in
Italy and 12.2% in France; while Tunisia has 22.8%, well ahead of various EU states.
Nordic countries are exceptions, and examples for other countries, with an average
of almost 40% for women’s participation in the legislative chambers. To overcome
the imbalance, affirmative action or quota systems are used in countries like Jordan,
Morocco and in northern countries. However, such actions do not alone resolve the
problem of discrimination.
As regards the executive, the trend is positive and various policies have been adopted
to promote greater representation and participation of women. There are women in
T-Kit No.11 - MOSAIC - The training kit for Euro-Mediterranean youth work