Our recommendations to the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union

Every semester, End FGM EU sends its recommendations to the Presidency of the Council of the European Union on matters related to FGM and Gender Equality.

We are pleased to announce that on Tuesday 12 July, we addressed the Czech Republic with a letter of recommendations for their semester as President of the Council.

Based on the trio and Presidency’s programmes, we have welcomed some of their priorities and provided recommendations on increasing the attention to gender-based violence and related files.

Among other things, we ask the Czech Presidency to:

• ensure that all migration and asylum policies take into consideration the human rights of people on the move, in particular girls and women, and their right to receive international protection when affected or at risk of being affected by FGM in the countries they are fleeing;
• advance steps in the EU accession to the Istanbul Convention, and setting the example by being the next country to ratify the Convention
• advance negotiations towards the adoption of the Directive on violence against women and domestic violence proposed by the European Commission earlier this year
• support girls’ rights everywhere by endorsing the actions and events of the coalition European Week of Action for Girls which will take place around the 11th of October (International Day of the Girl Child)
• ensure the acceleration of actions at EU level and in global partnerships to achieve SDGs, particularly SDG 5.3;

We stand ready to support the Czech Presidency in delivering on commitments around human rights and core EU values. The full letter, in English, is available here.