On 24 September, ahead of International Safe Abortion Day (28 September), PES Women members, MEPs, members of the Committee of the Regions, and civil society representatives gathered to discuss SRHR in the EU and global contexts. The network concluded that SRHR are a fundamental pillar of women’s rights and gender equality that must be strengthened, not weakened by conservative backlash. Read more.

To mark the day, FEPS published a podcast featuring PES Women member Rhonda Donaghey about standing up for women's fair and safe access to abortion care. Listen here.

Meeting online, the PES Women Executive reiterated its support for women in conflict and the need for international solidarity. Read more.

The meeting followed PES Women's statement last month on the situation for women in Afghanistan and was accompanied by an online campaign for International Day of Peace.. 

The workshop was entitled "Re-tooling gender equality – Putting words into action & improving political culture"  and focused on combating ruler techniques and improving political culture. The overall topic of this year's Korčula school was "Recover, Restart, Retool 2021 – Rethinking Gender Equality”. PES Women President Zita Gurmai also gave an opening address to the participants. Read more.

PES Women Vice-President Katrine Skov spoke about the importance of ally-ship between feminism and LGBTIQ activism at the 4th PES-Rainbow Rose Pride Forum World Pride. Read more.

PES Women was also happy to support the #LoveWhereILive initiative by Rainbow Rose and the PES Group in the Committee of the Regions, standing up for LGBTIQ Freedom Zones in Europe. Read more. 

PES Women marked several important international days related to gender equality. In addition to International Safe Abortion Day (28/9) and World Sexual Health Day (4/9), we highlighted the gender equality aspect on International Day of Peace (21/9), International Equal Pay Day (18/9), International Day of Democracy (15/9) and the State of the European Union (14/9). 

PES Women members from the Nordic/Baltic (30/8) and Southern (16/9) regions respectively met to exchange on gender equality developments in their countries.

PES Women also participated in the PES Presidency (30/9) and Coordination Team (23/9) meetings, bringing a gender perspective to the discussions.

PES Women Statutory
15 October

PES CoR #ProgressivesSpeakUp: School of young local politicians
26-27 November, Seville
*Apply by 17 October