Hurrah! In December, the Conference of International non-Governmental Organisations (INGO Conference) of the Council of Europe (CoE) adopted new rules of procedure. This may not sound very exciting as an achievement, but it has some consequences we should keep in mind. First of all, your SIE representative at the CoE is now called “Head of Delegation”. This new name says it clearly that all of us are invited to join efforts to work with the INGO Conference for the achievement of true gender equality in our societies.
The Council of Europe always defines priorities on which all partners at the CoE should focus. As Soroptimists, we are lucky that gender equality has been such a priority for many years and will remain so in the future. Under the new Rules of Procedure, a group of INGO members can now form a committee of experts and become important partners for the politicians. SIE and Zonta, together with other women’s organisations, could for example form such a committee on the status of women. I am presently busy looking into this. It is quite exciting that the INGO Conference kind of gets a new start, but I am also a bit sad that my time as your representative comes to an end in October, my maximum term of 8 years being over then.
Last year, all sessions of the INGO Conference had to be online. The valuable networking, the exchange of information, the mutual excitement to work together on something big were missing. Still, apart from the new rules of procedure and, among other texts, a recommendation on the Istanbul Convention during the times of COVID was adopted by the INGO Conference.
I had planned to invite English-speaking Soroptimists to visit the Council of Europe during the January session of the Parliamentary Assembly. Two such visits have already taken place in past years, and both of them were well received both by the participants and by our lecturers who were thrilled by our genuine interest. Unfortunately, for still a couple of months, such visits are not possible due to COVID. I am presently in contact with the head of the visitor service in order to see if we can put a good online visit together. I’ll keep you informed.