ALDE Group Vice President Izaskun Bilbao Barandica presented on 20 March in New York, along with Angela Vallina MEP (GUE), the report that the European Parliament contributes to the 62nd Session of the United Nations (UN) Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62), dedicated to the empowerment of women in rural areas. Bilbao recalled that women do two thirds of the work in this sector, but receive 10% of the income and only have one percent of the means of production, while seven out of ten impoverished people are women or underage.

“This marginalization is the fruit of learning, it is a social creation, and it produces great damage not only in terms of Fundamental Rights, of Justice and Democracy, but also in economic results”, she said. “It is estimated that women’s access to the means of production in the primary sector, under the same conditions as men, would have a positive, direct and relatively rapid impact on the productivity of the sector of more than 30%.”

https://twitter.com/IzaskunBilbaoB/status/976157667013033985?s=20

ALDE Group MEPs emphasise that equality in rural areas is a necessity and an obligation if we want to promote a true revolution in the direction that the world needs.

“When hunger kills, when there are no clear expectations to survive in a territory, when millions of people have nothing to lose, there are migratory movements that can only be resolved at the source, working on eliminating the causes that generate despair," she concluded.

https://twitter.com/RenewEurope/status/976382434240618497?s=20