Slovak women rights activists protest against new EP equal opportunities head
Slovak MEP for the European People's Party, Anna Zaborska, was elected chair of the European Parliament's Committee for Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities on Monday, July 26. In a secret ballot, 15 members of the committee voted for her, four voted against and three abstained. The socialists, who Friday, July 23, withheld support for Zaborska, a member of Slovakia's conservative Christian Democrat party, did not take part in Monday's vote. Conservative as to her publicly presented opinions on homosexuals and abortions, Anna Zaborska will now chair one of the most liberal committees in the European parliament.
Slovak women rights activists started to be alarmed that a member of a conservative Christian based party would become the head of the committee which helped to legalize abortions, contraceptives and reproductive rights.
This is a quite progressive organisation in the field of ensuring gender equality and struggling for equal treatment for women and men. In such case, she could really block the activities of that kind of committee.
"I will behave like the main representative of all women present in this committee. I will neither represent the conservative fraction nor my own Christian Democratic Party. "
Although talking about her impartiality, Anna Zaborska remains a member of the Christian Democratic party. The party released a statement on the occasion of her approval in the chairwoman position part of which states:
"Fortunately this situation shows that Christian Democratic Movement can succeed at the international political scene without loosing on the strength of their Christian Democratic policy."
Laura Dyttertova, the spokesperson of the party. A couple of weeks ago, the party supported Swedish reverend Ake Green who was sentenced to a month in jail for verbally offending homosexuals in his sermon marking gays and lesbians abnormal and a cancerous tumour on the body of society.
In the statement criticising the protests against the nomination of Anna Zaborska for the head of the Women's rights and Gender Equality committee, the Christian Democratic Movement accused left oriented politicians and activists of intolerance. Women activist Sylvia Porubanova finds this accusation absurd.
It is not about Ms. Zaborska as an individual. But as soon as she is a representative of a parliamentary committee she is not supposed to represent her personal view.
The agenda of the committee has been set ahead. According to Sylvia Porubanova it requires a clear-cut political attitude. Women activists fear that Ms. Zaborska represents the most conservative kind of stereotypes and prejudices against which the agenda of this committee is aimed.
There has been a question raised if this nomination was an intention from the side of the most conservative circles of the European Parliament.
Although Ms. Zaborska took the protests of women activists personally, their objections were mostly aimed at the policy of the European Parliamentary parties as such. Some of the activists even speculate over the role of conservative newcomers such as Slovakia and Poland in the possible shift of the EU legislature in the future.
