Mr President, I would firstly like to praise Mrs Smet’s report, which I believe takes account of many of the complaints and demands from women’s organisations and human rights organisations. It is true that we have made plenty of progress in terms of statements and words. It is easy to hear political leaders saying that women’s rights are human rights and that, as such, they must be protected and defended. The only problem is that, following these statements, when action should come, nothing happens. The human rights of women are always relative. Relative to traditions, to cultures, to families; we always find that a degree of relativity is involved when we have to apply specific protection to women who suffer very serious persecution, which we all know about, which has been described and information on which is available to anybody and is horrifying. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has already approved guidelines aimed at persuading governments to make decisions on asylum requests in a way which guarantees adequate attention for women within the procedures for determining refugee status, and that applications for reasons of gender should be recognised as such. What we are ultimately talking about is genuinely protecting, de facto, the human rights of women at international level, and we have the instruments. For some reason, it is much easier to obtain refugee status when a person is persecuted for political reasons than when a person is persecuted a result of their sex. Women at risk of genital mutilation do not know that they may have international protection, because we do not tell them, because we never take the step forward necessary to really use the legal protection instruments available to us to protect women. Mrs Smet’s report points out several ideas which I believe would be very useful in terms of working with third countries with regard to the protection of women’s rights, but it is the case that we lack one of the instruments, which is, precisely, the possibility for women to seek protection within our borders, within the framework of our legal protection, something which is, however, available in other situations which are clearly comparable with those suffered by women. The percentage of persecuted women who are granted refugee status is truly ridiculous. These are the cases which should really be studied if we are to realise that our statements must become specific actions, because – and I would insist – in letters, in statements, in Constitutions, even in many documents from this Parliament and from the Commission, we have recognised that it is essential to protect the women suffering this persecution. When I talk about persecution, moreover, I am talking about serious aggression, not just any old thing. I am talking about stoning, about genital mutilation, about burning, about mutilation with acid, about crimes of honour, about enforced marriages, about slavery and about sexual exploitation. If all of these are not reasons to protect women under international law, then what are? Why do we not take a step forward and accompany our statements with specific actions? Why do we not say to women that they should not worry, that they have a place to turn to when they are suffering serious aggression? The reason is that we are prepared to recognise these aggressions as serious violations of human rights, but we are not prepared to offer them the solutions that we offer in other similar situations. We are not prepared to do so, furthermore, for the simple reason that they are – that we are – women without power. (Applause)

Political group: PSE