WoW at the Universal Periodic Review on HR of Spain at the UN, Geneva

Last Wednesday, January 22, the Universal Periodic Review of Spain took place in Geneva, headquarters of the UN Human Rights Council, during which our representative Aida Lorca was present to hear the report of the main objectives achieved in the last 5 years, presented by Fernando Valenzuela, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and to consider the new recommendations made by the other Member States.

In relation to our field of work (women and maternity) we are quite concerned because at no time did they talk about the rights of working mothers in the labor market, nor about mothers with exclusive dedication to the family, and even less about young women who wish to have children but cannot. Nothing, zero.

On the other hand, what Spain did hail as progress was its fight against gender violence, the reduction of the wage gap, the gradual increase in paternity leave, parity in the executive branch, the recent creation of the Ministry of Equality..., but absolutely not a single reference to maternity.

The only country that stressed the need for the Spanish government to protect the family as a fundamental social element was Egypt. The other countries focused on the omnipresent gender equality, which for us is a fallacy since it is based on an ideology that denies the differences between men and women.

We are very disappointed, because indeed in the complementary report that summarizes the contributions made by the NGOs they highlight our concern about maternal mobbing, which is a clear labor discrimination based on maternity and the lack of recognition of this phenomenon means that there are many cases but they are difficult to prove.

At Women of the World we will continue to work at the international level to be the voice of women speaking in women's terms and to counteract the gendered language that confuses and actually harms women's rights.

If you want to read our full contribution it is available at this link: http://womenworldplatform.com/files/20200123175611-aportacioneswowepuespana2020.pdf

Thank you and keep up the good work