In recent years, steps that we believed decisive had been taken to banish any gender-based discrimination from the European Union, making Europe a banner of equal opportunities and non-discrimination for everyone. However, not only are we still a long way from achieving EQUALITY FOR ALL GENDERS (a European Youth Goal of the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027), but there has been a serious setback in recent years in many of the partner countries, especially in Eastern Europe, as made clear from the different studies and analyzes carried out by various administrations, institutes, and entities, especially Fundación por la Europa de los Ciudadanos (FEC), an entity expert in this field, on which it bases much of its activity plan. As a result of the structured dialogue generated between political authorities and young participants carried out within the project “FOR THE EQUALITY OF ALL GENDERS: NO STEP BACK IN THE RIGHTS OF YOUNG WOMEN AND YOUNG LGBTIQ+”, FEC and various European social entities, have detected a very alarming situation thanks to our close work with youth, especially with LGBTIQ+ and young women. The level of precariousness of this group has increased enormously, having their employment, physical integrity, and social acceptance in danger. In recent years, gender-based discrimination has become very intense, impacting many young persons, especially women. This is a decay of the most basic rights of European youth (regardless of their gender, including non-binary and LGBTIQ+ youth) that has been coupled with a relentless increase of extremist groups that promote hatred and discrimination. This is why FEC (Spain) and other prestigious entities in the field of youth, such as Nikos Poulantzas Institute (Greece), Espaces Marx (France), Transform!-AT (Austria), Foundation Naprzód (Poland), SYKESO (Cyprus), and more importantly hundreds of young persons actively involved in the dozens of projects, propose to create the project “NO STEP BACK ON THE RIGHTS OF YOUNG WOMEN AND YOUNG LGBTIQ+ IN EUROPE”. This project will allow the creation of a European network comprised of the six promoter entities, plus dozens of entities and youth groups throughout Europe, who will work together in the future, but especially from now until 2027 (the end of the current EU Youth Strategy) to ensure equality for all genders and gender-sensitive approaches in all areas of a young person’s life, and to achieve the full inclusion of gender-segregated youth, especially through the figure of the AGENTS FOR THE EQUALITY OF ALL GENDERS. However, we are aware that this cannot be achieved just with good intentions, which is why through the direct work with young persons, our entities propose two impactful results: - On the one hand, the GUIDE FOR YOUNG PERSONS FOR THE EQUALITY FOR ALL GENDERS, a material to train young persons to become AGENTS FOR THE EQUALITY OF ALL GENDERS, to fight gender-based discrimination and establish specific measures for the youth themselves, for public institutions, mass media, social entities, etc. - And on the other hand, an effective action plan, the “POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ITINERARY: YOUNG PERSONS FOR THE EQUALITY OF ALL GENDERS”, structuring a set of activities, events, and common proposals between the European Parliament, regional and local public administrations, and entity and social policies that these agents will implement between the years 2023 and 2027 to increase the awareness, the visibility, and train the European society -especially youth- on the need to achieve the goals of the EU Youth Strategy, especially GOAL 2: GENDER EQUALITY. These two highly impactful results will be created thanks to a 23-month project that will include 4 Transnational Meetings (Spain, Poland, Austria, Cyprus) and many participatory actions carried out by young persons in most of the partner countries to develop its results, as well as many dissemination activities carried out up to 2027 by the partner entities in collaboration with various national, regional, and local governments throughout Europe, to build a series of coordinated actions to achieve equality and make young persons the leading agents of this fight of everyone.
The project “NO STEP BACK ON THE RIGHTS OF YOUNG WOMEN AND YOUNG LGBTIQ+ IN EUROPE” has achieved its goal of advancing towards the equality for all genders despite the difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic, through the itinerary for the inclusion of young women and LGTBIQ+ youth and the creation of the AGENTS FOR THE EQUALITY OF ALL GENDERS (connecting with GOAL 2 of EU’s Objectives for Youth: EQUALITY FOR ALL GENDERS). In addition to its initial objectives, this ambitious project has: ‒ Reached hundreds of young people in all European partner countries, as well as several countries outside our partners. ‒ Exceeded expectations regarding the AGENTS FOR THE EQUALITY OF ALL GENDERS by training 75 young people. ‒ Had support of leading authorities of the European Parliament (Konstantinos ARVANITIS, Helmut SCHOLZ, and the YOUTHLEFT group) to promote institutional initiatives derived from the project. ‒ Had its results validated by 50 social entities. ‒ Had a larger dissemination campaign than what was planned, reaching 21 European countries, 348 associations, and impacted more than 2000 young people. ‒ Drafted two studies on women’s rights not initially planned for in the application.
In recent years, steps had been taken that we believed were decisive to banish the discrimination of any gender from the EU, moving towards the equality of all genders, but as a result of the structured dialogue that we generated in our previous project of collaboration with youth, especially young women and LGBTIQ + youth, we detected a very alarming situation: that there’s not only a long way remaining to reach equality, but also a severe step back in their rights in many partner countries, especially in Eastern Europe, due to the unbridled rise of far-right and hateful ideologies coupled with the hard impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. This implies enormous levels of precariousness for these groups, which endanger their social acceptance, but also their jobs and physical integrity. Therefore, FEC (Spain), NICOS POULANTZAS (Greece), ESPACES MARX (France), TRANSFORM!AT (Austria), FOUNDATION NAPRZÓD (Poland), and SYKESO (Cyprus), proposed the project “NO STEP BACK ON THE RIGHTS OF YOUNG WOMEN AND YOUNG LGBTIQ+ IN EUROPE”, which has addressed the pressing needs of these groups and ensured equality of all genders and gender-sensitive approaches in all areas of their lives.