WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Human rights – and specifically women’s rights – are, continuously, on the European Union agenda. European Union aims, and has, a clear goal to guarantee to all the European citizens, residents and everyone that seeks protection in the European space the full exercise of human rights recognized to all people. Considering a gender perspective, a full exercise of rights to all women and young girls is still to be achieved, even in the European space women are still a target of discrimination. Achieving gender equality is one of the aims and an important goal to achieve a sustainable development and is one of the goals (SDG4) of the 2030 Agenda of the UN. Human rights, and women’s rights in particular, arise from the very first principle of non-discrimination (in this case related to gender) and it’s at the very core and foundation of the European Union itself. Women’s rights come up again in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and they remain at the European Convention of Human Rights core (to which every Member State and the Union itself are parts and have committed to), and in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. The work we intend to develop is to analyze and look through these perspectives, legal documents, and court decisions to identify the main legal questions that have been placed in these last decades related to gender and women’s rights in the European Union. We aim to characterize women’s rights in the European Union these days, and the work that the European institutions have being developing to guarantee women’s rights, erase gender bias and achieve, in the European context, full gender equality. Also, the impact of COVID-19 in the European Space is to be considered in the matter of the analysis of women’s rights. It shall also be included in our research the influence of the European Convention of Human Rights, and specifically, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.