EIGE Civil Society Annual Consultation

Vilnius, Lithuania 24-25 January 2017

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is an autonomous body of the European Union, established to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming in all EU policies and the resulting national policies, and the fight against discrimination based on sex, as well as to raise EU citizens’ awareness of gender equality.

EFOMW participated actively in the workshops and discussions on intersectionality and gender equality, on the gender equality data index, on promoting women’s human rights in a context of rising anti-feminist attacks and on how to build coalitions between different groups.

We highlighted problem of lack of data for certain categories and the way the data currently uses in terms of intersectionality.

Our recommendations were to look at the inequalities present in European countries between women from minority groups and white women and to look at intersectionality of race and religion when introducing a ‘intersectionality’ factor in EIGE equality index.

At individual meeting that was organised with EIGE staff we discussed the specific case of Muslim women’s discriminations. EFOMW together with ENAR pointed out the issues Muslim women face in access to employment, access to higher education as well as stigmatizing public discourse.