Lívia Járóka, on behalf of the PPE Group. – (HU) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, we are celebrating the one hundredth International Women’s Day, commemorating the demonstration of worker women who protested for equal wages in New York in the mid-19th century. The goal they set more than 150 years ago in 1857, to ensure equal pay for equal work, is still relevant today. In the European Union, women earn 15% less than men; this number is 16.5% in my home country, Hungary, and even though more than half of the world’s total population comprises women, they only receive a 10% share of global income.

Besides eliminating the gender gap in wages, the appropriate reinforcement of the role of women in the family and the assertion of the principle of equal treatment still remain to be solved. We must not allow having children to represent a poverty risk in Europe, and being a woman or a mother to represent a disadvantage. Whether we are looking at the initiatives launched within the UN or those within the European Union, true equality between men and women has still not been implemented in most places. We lay little emphasis on the situation of women living close to the poverty line, on the phenomenon of multiple discrimination, and on combating domestic violence and violence committed against women.