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The opening ceremony was also attended by the European Commission's Director of Equality Between Men and Women, Action Against Discrimination and Civil Society, Belinda Pyke; the President of the European Parliament's Commission on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, Eva Britt Svensson, and the Mayor of Cadiz, Teófila Martínez. The list of speakers was completed with the President of the Junta de Andalucía (regional government), José Antonio Griñán.
Ministers and top-level political representatives of the governments of the EU, the European Parliament, the UN Development Fund for Women (Unifem) and Spanish and European women's organisations are taking part in the event, in order to gauge the degree to which the strategic objectives and measures established during the Fourth World Conference on Women, held 15 years ago in Beijing, have been met.

Minister Aído said that “in most countries there has been virtually no change in professional and sectorial segregation between the sexes”. Although the average difference between female and male employment rates fell from 17% in 2000 to 14% in 2007, in the case of people with children to look after, the drop in the employment rate among women is 12.4 points, compared to 7.3 points for men, she said.

The minister said that ensuring shared responsibility between men and women in the family setting was a challenge that has yet to be overcome. This is reflected in figures from 2007, which show the number of female part-time workers in the EU stands at 31.2%, four times higher than the numbers for men. Wage differences between the sexes also persist, with an average discrepancy of 17.4% throughout the EU as a whole.

Eva Britt stressed the need to involve "women and society as a whole" in eradicating inequality and especially the violence that affects "all women in all social classes". Belinda Pyke, meanwhile, said the forum should draft a "strong" document to take to the UN's 5th World Conference on Women.

Over the course of the two-day event, a report produced by the Swedish Presidency to show Members States' compliance with the Beijing conference's action plan will be presented. This is the third report produced since 2000 in the EU to evaluate the 12 main areas of the Beijing Platform for Action.

The forum sessions have been structured into five thematic areas, with three of these to be studied by discussion groups (health and violence, economy, and education and media), while the other two will be dealt with by high-level working groups (future challenges for the EU and decision-making).

The forum is being held one day after 27 EU ministers and secretaries of state adopted the “Cadiz Declaration” at the Second European Women in Power Summit, which aims to give a decisive push to the issue of gender equality in the EU.

The forum also comes before the extraordinary session of the CSW Beijing+15, which will be held during the first fortnight of March at the UN headquarters in New York.

Source: http://www.eu2010.es/en/documentosynoticias/noticias/feb04_foromujeres1.html