Human rights violations are wide-spread in many countries. And often women are the victims. Women's rights are violated in the family, in the community, and by the state. We often hear of violence against women and of the social and economic inequality women have to endure. In developing countries women often have no choice but to succumb to violence and inequality. In developed countries, however, women perhaps have greater possibilities for help. But the pain and humiliation are the same for all abused and discriminated women no matter where they live.

In Europe, the case of Semira Adamu brought us face to face with that reality. It showed us in a very brutal manner the way in which the existing legislation of the governments of the EU member states take into account the suffering of women.

Last September, at the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Human Rights Convention, Semira Adamu, a 20-year-old asylum seeker in Belgium was killed by the violence of the Belgian police because she resisted flying back to Nigeria where a forced marriage was awaiting her.

Semira Adamu died because the Geneva Convention does not provide anything in cases of gender-related persecutions. Forced marriage and other forms of persecution, like female genital mutilation or social or religious violations of women's rights. Persecution linked to the refusal by women to surrender to this oppression is neither recognised at international level nor in national legislation, as a ground for seeking asylum.

Violence Against Women

Like most European women, Basque women are allowed to vote, go to school, work outside the home, go to bars, choose a partner, and even opt for TV dinners. Yet like most European women, Basque women are still far from equal.

In the Basque Country (Euskal Herria in the Basque language) violence is not just a women's issue. Violence in all forms is an issue for the whole community. Although in the domestic sphere women are still abused more often than men.

Domestic violence and sexual harassment has been recognised as an area of attention by the two states that rule over the Basque Country and their regional governments in Aquitaine, Bascongada, and Navarre. But their rhetoric is far from being fulfilled in practice. In the Basque Country no comprehensive study has ever been conducted on the extent and nature of violence against women thus there is no data on the issue. The limited information available about those cases of domestic violence that have been reported has been provided by grassroots organizations in need of public funding.

It is commonly known that chemicals are being put into the environment that stimulate human hormones which adversely affect, especially, women. In Bascongada, which is the second community in Spain with more contaminated soil due to the industrial activity, services to women, along with those for environmental contamination are at the bottom of the pile.

For example, the 1997 budget of the regional government of Bascongada allocated 34 million pesetas to industrial environment, and 301 million to "the promotion of equality and opportunity for women" while 180,357 million went to the military. The funds allocated to the military exceeded Bascongada's proportion of the central government's defense as well as the budget for the local interior department. Moreover, for the period 1990-1996 during the Ardanza administration, the regional government gave 9,584 million in subsidies to 14 arms companies. Obviously the Ardanza administration thought it was more important to maintain the health of the Basque arms industry including Spain's arms exports (ranked fifth place among the world's arms sellers in 1997) than the health of the Basque citizens.

Notwithstanding the number of cases reported are unknown, in 1991 the Supreme Court in Bascongada had already warned that incidents of domestic violence and sexual harassment were up. In the four provinces in Spain alone, police received 1,343 domestic violence-related complaints in 1993, of which 657 came from Bizkaia, 358 from Araba, 166 from Gipuzkoa, and 62 from Navarre. The number of incidents reported in 1996 was 2,135.

No statistics are available for cases of sexual harassment except those reported in a study conducted in 1994 by the Spanish labour union UGT and the regional government of Navarre. The study showed that 4,300 women in Navarre - 7.5 percent of the women in the work force - claimed sexual harassment in the workplace.

There is no comprehensive data on the issue, but myths and misconceptions about domestic violence abound. For example, the questions in a poll conducted by the government of Bascongada in 1998 obviously shows the government itself needs to be educated in the myths and realities of domestic violence before even trying to deal with the issue. The poll asked questions such as "do you think domestic violence could be justified ... when the woman provokes or doesn't behave as she should ... the agressor is going through hard times or is unemployed ... the aggressor is drunk or drugged."

In the last 30 years thousands of women arrested for their involvement in the national liberation struggle have reported torture and ill-treatment by police. Some died while in police custody. The kind of special torture and ill-treatment inflicted on these women is just another form of sexual abuse against women. For example, in Navarre, a young woman was abducted from the street by police and tortured. She was drugged, tortured, and then abandoned near a gas station where she was found unconscious. The doctors who treated her said she had been beaten all over and that two stones and parts of an unidentified object had been found in her vagina.

The Right To Abortion

Women in the Basque Country have campaigned extensively for the right to abortion and for health centers to provide contraception and information on abortion and the alternatives. In the Basque Country - with the exception of the Basque provinces in France where abortion is legal - abortion still is considered a crime. It is only allowed if "it creates a personal, family, or social conflict" to the woman - a decision that is made by two "specialists" of an "accredited center" after the woman seeking abortion has gone through the required counseling sessions.

According to a women grassroots group Egizan the number of abortions per year in the Basque provinces in Spain is 10,000, with private clinics perfoming 90 percent of the abortions. Because of the pressure by pro-life groups in Araba and Navarre, most doctors in these two provinces do not perfom abortion. Women in Araba and Navarre seeking abortion have to go for assistance to other places in or outside the Basque Country. Women seeking abortion are forced to take multiple days off from work, risk loss of employment, lose wages, leave families unattended or arrange for costly child care. This and the limited public funding for those who can't afford the procedure put limitations on freedom of choice and have made it increasingly difficult for women to obtain "legal" and safe abortion. We really don't believe such barriers would exist if men got pregnant.

The right to choose the way of life we wish to lead

Most governments of the EU's country members recognize that equality for women cannot be achieved without economic security and independence. But for the majority of European women, including Basque women, our right to choose the way of life we wish to lead is as limited as it has always been.

Women are relegated to an inferior position in the work force because the bosses believe we are an unstable work force. Unstable means to male bosses things as getting pregnant, staying home to take care of a sick child, and equally frivoulous deeds.

Many women in the Basque Country work at home taking care of the family and are dependent on income received from their partners. Since they don't get pay for rearing a family their status as an occupation is at the bottom of the ladder.

A Basque sociologist and a writer, Justo de la Cueva, reminds us that "the bulwark of the Basque working class are the 650,000 housewives" who work without pay an average of 9 hours a day, or 4 hours of part-time work, to sustain a work force. "These `housewives' work 4 million hours a day which are unpaid by the capitalist system but required to keep a work force," says de la Cueva.

On the other hand, Basque women in the workforce are paid less than men for similar work. Women's wages are 60-70 percent of men's. If women have work at all. With the privatisation of the public sector jobs once guaranteed by the state either no longer exist or have gone to men during downsizing and gender-based layoffs.

In the Basque provinces in Spain, the unemployment rate for women is 32 percent in Bascongada; and 18 percent in Navarre. In the Basque provinces in France the unemployment rate for women is 25 percent. The EU average unemployment rate for women 25 and over is 12 percent. The average unemployment rate for under-25 women is 40 percent in the Basque Country, among the highest in the EU -- lowest EU rate for under-25 women is 7 percent; highest is 45 percent in Spain and 31 percent in France.

In the arts and lettres women are for the most part invisible in Basque literature, subordinate to men in the making, analyzing, and exhibiting of art. Women workers are relegated to the poorest paying jobs. Very few women are in top managerial positions, on boards of banks, members of parliament or of prestigious societies. And when they are it doesn't seem to make much difference to the rest of women.

That is because the lack of women managers or in top positions is just a sympton of the general situation of women as a whole, not a cause. Having more women at the top of a profession won't change the basic ground rules by which society is run. In fact, very often those women at the top do suffer sexism from their colleagues and are even ostracised from the old boys network and may find it more difficult to succeed. Even Margaret Thachter as nasty as she is probably had this problem.

But many women at the top also have an interest in seeing the system continue -- again we're reminded of Margaret Thachter. Their high incomes, standard of living and position in society depends from their being on the top of the pile. They may be progressive on safe issues that affect most women, such as domestic violence, but when it comes to issues that question the way society is run and thus threaten their position, sisterhood quickly breaks down.

Basque women have of course won some gains. For example, extensive campaign by women in the French state, as well as the government's promotion of a higher birth rate, resulted in legislation that granted women some rights. Under French legislation women are entitled to 52 weeks unpaid maternity leave. Women are entitled to a one lump sum payment after the baby's birth, and free health care before and after the birth. A parent with three children or more who chooses to stay home to take care of the family is entitled to a monthly subsidy of about 3,000 ff (600 dollars).

But because of the lack of jobs and of free quality child care, many women choose to stay home and often live in poverty. In fact, in the Basque provinces in France the number of women (mainly single mothers and widows with children ) on welfare has gone up 20 percent in the last five years.

Women and European integration

Rosi Braidotti, a professor of philosophy and feminist theory (Univ. of Utrecht, Holland),is the director of the Institute for Women's Studies and coordinator of the Network ofInterdisciplinary Women's Studies in Europe. She is also a model of the way of thinking in Europe that asks women to trust the European Union (EU) with taking care of our needs.

During a visit to Denmark three years ago, Braidotti met with Danish feminists and membersof the left who opposed Denmark joining the EU on grounds that it contains a southern European model of social organization. Danish, who have a thorough social welfare coverage and boast of having a 30 percent representation of women in their national parliament, claim European activities would be negative for Danish women who will gain nothing from European integration.

Braidotti, a self-proclaimed left-wing feminist and critical intellectual, called the Danish case against Europe "arrogant" and "ethnocentric" and claimed that "gender equality is a top priority in the Maastricht Treaty." According to Braidotti, Danish women should think of a global solution to inequality, and embrace the EU "even though it may entail an immediate loss of privileges" to them. She claimed "we need more and harder work to elect women to the European parliament," and that the EU needs the input of advanced social movements such as the Danish and other Scandinavian women's organization including the feminists. Danish have "every right to criticize the masculinism of most European Union institutions, including the Euro-Parliament," said Braidotti.

This seemingly benevolent school of thought defends European integration on the assumption that trans-national economy means the decline of the nation-state, which is a good thing because this in turn will bury "all forms of nationalism" which they claim to be responsible for the "tormented history and conflicts of Europe." These supporters of the European community project claim that since "the territorial foundations for the means of production are truly gone," the EU attempts to deal with this in a constructive manner through integration.

Thus Braidotti told the Danish women that since we can't do anything to change the structure of advanced postindustrial capitalism, the most effective way of organizing politically is to "renounce ethnocentrism" and look for collective solutions. That is, give up any "territorially-based social privileges" and let the EU take care of our needs.

What she didn't tell them, however, is that the EU is run for profit, not for need. In fact, in the EU's policy agenda, market liberalization and competition policies are of primary importance, compare to welfare and social policies. The EU's main policy instrument is legal regulation, while redistribution of economic resources plays a very modest part. Moreover, she asks us to renounce our differences rather than to recognize them and go on from there.

Trying to convince the Danish women they should support integration, Braidotti claimed that for most countries of the Union European legislation is more progressive than state legislation especially in areas such as women and gay rights. "Just think of the Irish feminists and of Italian gay-rights activists appealing to the European Court of Justice against their national governments."

But this is far from being a reality. Firstly, the EU, like most national governments, have failed to deal efficiently with one of the main impediments preventing women from working: child care thus leaving it up to the individual to make their own arrangements as best as they can. Second, even if the EU and its country members would find solutions to issues such as unemployment, equal education, job opportunities and equal pay, this would amount to little without free 24 hour nurseries and free contraception and abortion on demand. While a small minority of women like Braidotti can buy control of their own fertility, for the majority, family and child care still is as it has always been the largest problem faced by women workers.

Neither can we Basque women trust the EU with taking care of our needs -- even without testosterone flying high in parliament or the Danish women who are biased against southern Europeans. The European Council, the main legislator, relies on doubtly indirect democratic representation. The European parliament does not have the authority to legislate and tax or to hold the executive accountable. Executive power is concentrated in the Commission, which favors the position of national governments over anything that would challenge the governments' actions or inactions. On the other hand, the European Court of Justice while it has a strong role it lacks any means of implementing its decision. That is, it has no way to impose its sanctions.

It is for these reasons that the issue of women's ability to control their own fertility is key in achieving equality. That is the fight for abortion rights, for freely available contraceptives, and for 24 hours quality childcare. In this argument capitalism won't concede. It must be defeated with sufficient pressure and persistence.

Very importantly, however, Basque women we need an autonomous pressure group and a campaign that presents our arguments to the entire body of people and fight as a whole. We ought to fight this battle along with other crucial battles like the Basque language. We cannot just build a nation -- but a new nation without second class citizens.

Sources:
The Basque Red Net published in Navarre (Euskal Herria). The BRN founded by Justo de la Cueva has weekly analysis by de la Cueva on the Basque Country as well as articles by other writers on social and political issues in the Basque Country.
CRLP - The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy
Egin archives
European Women Lobby
Forum Artikel: Europe and feminist advantage
LegiFrance
UN Committee for the Prevention of Torture