The Lisbon Treaty is detrimental to the interests of women and will lead to a decline in the quality of public services most accessed by women, a campaign group calling itself 'Women Say No to Lisbon – Again' claimed today.
The group also claimed the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which will be made legally binding by Lisbon, ignored women’s human rights in several areas, including the right to childcare, reproductive and sexual rights, divorce, housing and the right to freedom and protection from men’s violence.
Launching its referendum campaign in Dublin today, the group urged women to vote No, and not to be “bullied” into voting Yes, just because “Europe has been good for us”.
The group, which includes several prominent anti-Lisbon campaigners such as Patricia McKenna, Ailbhe Smith and Sinn Fein’s Bairbre de Brún, said: “We’re not voting on a track record”.
It warned the Treaty provided a legal basis for the increased liberalisation of public services which would pave the way for private sector ownership of essential social services.
“The majority of those working in public services are women, and we also use public services more than men: health and pregnancy care; dealing with the education of our children, including those with difficulties; looking after the infirm and elderly; trying to access public services, especially in rural areas, using public transport,” the group said.
It warned that when these services are run down or of bad quality, it is women who “bear the burden, or suffer directly”.
The group claimed the Treaty offered little to women in way of equality or equal pay and the Charter of Fundamental Rights failed to protect women’s rights.
The Charter has been a legal reference point for the European Court of Justice since 2000, but whenever the rights of workers have come into conflict with rights of business, the Court has favoured business, it said.
“The same would happen with women’s rights: OK as long as business is not disrupted,” it said.