Address by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL A. Kyprianou to the morning breakfast for women involved in public life
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 8th March 2018, “Hilton” Hotel, Nicosia
Thank you all for your positive response to our invitation. This initiative, now established as a custom, is undertaken for a very simple reason. To highlight the need for women to have a greater role and stronger voice. To point out the important role they play in the state, society and political life.
Unfortunately, the crucial issues that affect women aren’t being heard and discussed, nor are they being projected. We remain as a society captives of the insulting and outdated view that “women should be restricted at home; not for much else”. Let’s just reflect for a while on the perceptions and stereotypes people’s minds are being brainwashed with every day by the press and the mass media. Women should have specific interests confined to their image, career and family – that’s the perception being promoted.
As AKEL, we believe that women do have a lot to say and can do even more. Besides, we are the Party that dared at the beginning of the last century not only to address women, but also to bring them to the fore. At a time when to be involved in political life was considered as something scandalous for a women, the Communist Party of Cyprus-AKEL had figures such as Cleo Ioannidou, Katina Tumazou-Nicolaou and others among its ranks; women who were bold, organized in the Communist Party of Cyprus, to fight for issues that affected them, to devote themselves to political and social struggles and open up – for that era unknown and unprecedented – avenues for the woman of Cyprus.
The organized women’s movement of the Left, namely POGO, is the force that has managed to put Cypriot women at the centre of political and socio-economic struggles, combining the struggles for equality and parity with the more general struggle working people are waging for social justice. This movement fought in practice against backward conservative attitudes on the position of women in society and opened up the way for assertion and emancipation. It has left its mark on all the great gains of our people, women in particular.
It has contributed, together with AKEL and the wider People’s Movement of the Left, to the achievement of popular gains. The abolition of dowry, the revision of family law, the adoption of the Equality and Equality Act, equal access to work, better legislation on maternity protection, increased maternity and parental leave, and the campaign to prevent violence in the family all bear the stamp of the progressive women’s movement of POGO and the People’s Movement in general.
Today, women face many and complex issues. In a country with its own bitter historical experience, women have demonstrated during very difficult times that they can and must have a role to play first and foremost in the struggles for rapprochement, reunification and peace; for the verification of the fate of the missing persons and the defence and restoration of the historical truth.
Besides these issues, there are specific problems that women are confronted with. Unfortunately, not only are some of these problems not being discussed without the prospect of being resolved, but they are still considered a taboo. For example, for a woman to breastfeed a baby in public, to decide about her own body and receive equal pay are considered taboo subjects. More complex issues remain unsolved too, such as issues relating to the reconciliation of work and family life, the revision of family law, the provision of support towards single parent families and much more.
Finally, there must be a will demonstrated by all to raise the rights and needs of every woman, young, unemployed, elderly, working woman, farmer, immigrant, student, the woman engaged in the arts, letters, culture, sport and science, and the victim of physical, economic and social violence; a willingness to discuss and promote the progressive modernization of legislation and social outlooks towards women.
We are ready to work with everyone for these objectives. We are already working with POGO to promote these issues. Our goal is to improve ourselves and become more effective in our activity. That’s why we want to hear your opinions, suggestions, and proposals on these very issues from you all and about whatever you consider needs to be addressed.
Thank you again for your presence here today.
