Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Ordinary meeting
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FEMM European Parliament
Follow its sittingsJoanna Scheuring-Wielgus
Odnosząc się do tego, co przed chwilą zostało powiedziane, oczywiście ważne jest w kontekście tego raportu, aby znalazły się tam kwestie związane z przyspieszeniem działań, jeżeli chodzi o zakres równości płci i wzmocnienie pozycji kobiet i dziewcząt w ramach tej agendy 2030. W ramach tego tej agendy kluczowe są kwestie ubóstwa kobiet, niezależności ekonomicznej, dostępie kobiet na rynku pracy, godnych warunków pracy, ochrony socjalnej, ale też usuwania wszystkich strukturalnych barier, które ograniczają niezależność ekonomiczną kobiet. Wspomniany klimat i zagrożenia środowiskowe również bardzo ważne, bo jak wiemy kobiety są tymi osobami, które są narażone najbardziej, jeżeli chodzi o kryzys klimatyczny i katastrofę, ale też kobiety zbyt rzadko wpływają na decyzje, które dotyczą polityki klimatycznej, więc ważne jest, aby w tym raporcie było to ujęte. I tyle jeżeli chodzi o treść. Chciałabym dodać jeszcze jedną rzecz.
Jesteśmy po wakacjach, ale przypomnę, ubolewam bardzo, że po raz pierwszy w historii w historii naszego naszej komisji sprawozdawcą jest jest osoba z partii, a nie osoba neutralna światopoglądowo. Oczywiście te decyzje podejmowali koordynatorzy. Ja wtedy też wyraźnie mówiłam o tym, że ta praktyka została w jakiś sposób zerwana. Dlatego kluczowe jest to, naprawdę kluczowe jest to, aby na tej konferencji w Nowym Jorku dać jak najbardziej nie tyle ambitne stanowisko, ale stanowisko takie, które jest stanowiskiem nas wszystkich tutaj, ponieważ mówimy o całej komisji i praktyka była taka, że stanowisko było jednolite, obejmowało wszystkie partie i dlatego prezentowała to przewodnicząca. Teraz po raz pierwszy od tej praktyki odchodzimy.
Więc kluczowe jest to, aby rada usłyszała jeden mocny wspólny głos Parlamentu Europejskiego i rzeczywiście wzięła sobie nasze rekomendacje pod uwagę podczas negocjacji, które będą w Nowym Jorku. Dziękuję.
Lina Gálvez
So thank you, thank you very much. I hope we will manage to do that because indeed it is very important. As far as I know regarding the date the document was sent, it was the day before yesterday. Probably there was some problem reaching you, but in any case just to make that clear. So thank you, thank you very much.
We move now to Patriots for Europe, Barbara Bonte is not. I don't know if Margarita de la Pisa you would like to take the floor. Margarita, the floor is yours for two minutes and a half, thank you.
Margarita de la Pisa Carrión
Gracias, presidente, señorías. Cuántas injusticias siguen afectando hoy a las mujeres mientras Naciones Unidas y las instituciones europeas se siguen entreteniendo con agendas ideológicas. Porque cuando una mujer sufre una agresión, cuando es víctima de una red de trata, de un matrimonio forzado o de una explotación sexual, lo que necesita no es retórica. Necesita protección, justicia y respuestas. Y ahí está el problema.
Hay una distancia cada vez mayor entre lo que se dice aquí y lo que realmente preocupa a las mujeres en su día a día. Nos hemos perdido en ideas, en conceptos ambiguos que muchas veces ni se entienden y no se traducen en políticas concretas. O incluso ocurre que cada país lo hace como le conviene. Vemos lugares donde a la mujer no se le reconoce su dignidad, pero aquí aplaudimos porque aplican el discurso político de la retórica de género, sin que esto luego signifique una igualdad real ante la ley. Y además, esta agenda está costando muchísimo dinero.
La propia Comisión Europea reconoce que entre 2021 y 2025 unos 190.000 millones de euros del presupuesto europeo contribuyeron a promover la igualdad de género. 190.000 millones. Y después de semejante cantidad, creo que podemos hacernos una pregunta muy sencilla. ¿Está funcionando? Porque una mujer, una madre, a una mujer, a una madre, los objetivos de desarrollo sostenible no le solucionan sus problemas de vivienda, de conciliación, de seguridad en la calle o de protección frente a la violencia.
Dejen de echar la culpa y meter miedo contra lo que ya llaman la extrema derecha. La realidad es que esta retórica del mainstream no llega, no está calando entre las mujeres, entre los ciudadanos, porque no se entiende, no representa las preocupaciones. Quizá deberíamos preguntarnos por qué no llega, porque la solución no es insistir en el mismo mensaje ni intentar explicarlo mejor. La solución es cambiar el rumbo. Estamos a las puertas de 2030, donde se nos prometió acabar con la pobreza, reducir las desigualdades y transformar la vida de millones de personas.
¿De verdad vamos a acabar con la pobreza en cuatro años? ¿Qué ha fallado? La planificación, la aplicación, la manera de materializar estos objetivos. Porque si después de tantos años y de tantos recursos los problemas siguen ahí, deberíamos revisar qué estamos haciendo y sobre todo para quién lo estamos haciendo. Hoy hemos vuelto a perder una oportunidad con este informe para hablar de los problemas reales de las mujeres, de la maternidad, de la conciliación, de la seguridad, de la trata, de los matrimonios forzados, de la explotación o de la persecución de las mujeres por sus creencias.
Ese es el problema de este consenso, que intenta agradar a todo el mundo, al final no resuelve los problemas de nadie. Una vez más, corremos el riesgo de perdernos en retóricas, en agendas multimillonarias que canalizan los recursos hacia intereses concretos mientras las mujeres siguen esperando respuestas. Menos agenda, menos retórica y más políticas para las mujeres reales con problemas reales.
Muchas gracias.
Lina Gálvez
Eh, gracias, Margarita. Just one thing, since we have done an opinion on the MFF and also one on the performance tracking methodology of the European Union budget, I would like just to mention that this money is not directly this 190 thousand million, is not just money directly for gender equality. It is money, for instance, that if we are putting money on building up a railway, since women use more public transport than private transport compared to men, that it is considered a policy that it is improving gender equality. So just to make clear that when we listen this kind of amount of money, we are not talking about, obviously the Commission is not talking about direct money going to gender equality policies directly, but policies in general that could improve gender equality by this tracking methodology and the methodologies they have been developed. Just to make sure, because I want that this information is not spread.
So now, ECR, I don't have anyone. So we move to Renew, Mr. Salimesh, so the floor is yours for two minutes and a half. Thank you.
Dainius Žalimas
Thank you, thank you very much. I will read the intervention on behalf of Madam Abir Al-Sahlani. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Madam Rapporteur, for your hard work in producing this well-written draft report. As always, the Commission on the Status of Women is an excellent forum for an international community to renew and reaffirm its commitment to reaching gender equality worldwide, and this is further underpinned by the year's theme to accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of the 2030 status SDGs.
As Renew, we will be focusing on empowerment from the same angle we always do. Promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights, combating and eliminating all forms of violence and impunity against women, strengthening the women, peace and security agenda and ensuring the active participation of women in peace processes, and underlining the need for an intersectional approach. These elements are all core to the SDG agenda and should be a key message to take with us to this year's Commission on the Status of Women. Madam Rapporteur, we have closely worked together in the past and look forward to starting negotiations with you once again. Thank you.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you, thank you very much. Now, Greens, Anna Stölven, the floor is yours for two minutes, Anna. Thank you.
Anna Strolenberg
Thank you, Chair. Climate change, droughts, floods, access to affordable energy, it affects women all over the world disproportionately. So this theme of this year's CSW is particularly relevant to me. And you can also imagine as a shadow for the Greens that I find this topic relevant and close to my heart to also talk about the fact of climate change. And we know that the 2030 sustainable development goals, there's still a lot, a lot of work to do.
And I do agree that we have to look at practical solutions. What is it, what are the concrete steps that we can take to improve the life of women? And I think the draft that is presented to us by the rapporteur is a very solid basis, so thank you to the rapporteur for this. In the amendments that I will present, I will focus on different topics. First of all, of course, the negative effects of climate change on women and girls, but also specifically the participation of women and girls, well, women in leadership positions, because we see that when the bigger decisions are made, women are not often at the table.
So they have to be included.
Then there's one topic that isn't included, but I do think we have to talk about it, and that is the online sphere. If you look at how our lives are changing, how economies are changing, this is such a big part of our lives. So to have an emphasis on preventing and fighting cyber violence against women, gender disinformation, and online misogyny would be a priority, because it's spreading so, so fast. I talk weekly about people who have experienced deepfakes, grooming, revenge porn, so it has big effects and it traumatizes women and girls. So I hope we can also include this and have some strong commitments on the global level on this topic.
Last point that I will focus on is funding for civil society organizations, because this is essential to keep the fight going for equality. Thank you to the rapporteur and look forward to work together. Thanks.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you, thank you very much. From the Left, I have Kathleen Funchion, but Hanna, Hanna Gerrie will be taking the floor for two minutes and a half. Thank you.
Hanna Gedin
Thank you, Chair. So my colleague Kathleen Funchion was unfortunately unable to be here today, but she would like to thank the rapporteur, Giusi Princi, for her very good proposal for a report which provides a solid basis for our work in the coming weeks. The United Nations continues to be a fundamental pillar of the international order, despite its limitations and the numerous attacks it has faced, it remains an essential forum for dialogue and cooperation. In this respect, the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women plays a particularly important role. It allows us to address the challenges and discrimination that millions of women around the world still face today.
Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls within the framework of the 2030 Agenda must remain a priority. In doing so, we must start with the most vulnerable women, those living in extreme poverty, those suffering violence and genocide and atrocious violence, those without sufficient access to food and water, those who are victims of female genital mutilation, land dispossession, or the consequences of neocolonialism. And we must also address with greater determination one of the central issues of this year's conference: climate change. Climate change is also a matter of gender equality and women's rights. The United Nations itself provides ample evidence that around the world women will be disproportionately affected by the extreme impacts of climate change.
Kathleen will table amendments to strengthen this aspect of the report, to recognize human responsibility for climate change, to address rising sea levels and extreme heatwaves, and also to highlight the devastating impact of wars on the environment. Wars dramatically undermine the work being carried out around the world to achieve climate justice and to fully implement the Sustainable Development Goals. Kathleen hopes to work with all political groups to achieve a strong, concrete, and effective report ahead of the 71st session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Thank you.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you. We hope it's United Nations and not United States Commission. Sorry, sorry, it's a joke, just because they have, as you know, removed all the money for this purpose, so why I'm saying that. So now we move to ESN, Mrs. Borchardt, please, the floor is yours for two minutes and a half.
Irmhild Boßdorf
Ja, ich möchte gerne auf Deutsch sprechen. Das ist schon irre, was hier angesprochen wird: Klimawandel, Dürren, strukturelle Hindernisse, Cybergewalt, Frauen-Bashing, Deepfakes, Groomings, NGOs, Kriege, all das beeinflusst offenbar die Berufsauswahl und die Berufsbildung von Frauen. Ich wüsste gerne wie. Was wir möchten, das ist Freiheit für Frauen bei der Berufswahl, Freiheit bei der Ausbildung, bei der Wahl eines Studiums. Und wir sehen das auch in Deutschland: Immer mehr Frauen in MINT-Fächer strömen, ganz von alleine, ohne Förderquoten.
Wir müssen allerdings die Voraussetzung dafür schaffen, dass Frauen, die während ihres Studiums, während ihrer Ausbildung oder bei Berufstätigkeit Mütter werden oder werden wollen, dass diese endlich unterstützt werden. Ein letzter Hinweis an die Übersetzer, denen ich sehr danke für ihre Übersetzung, aber es gibt keine Mitgliederinnen. Es heißt das Mitglied, das ist ein Neutrum-Wort, das können Sie nicht gendern, und ich würde Sie bitten, in Zukunft auch das Mitglied mit das Mitglied zu belassen. Danke schön.
Lina Gálvez
So thank you, so the, I was not listening the German cabin, so I don't know what it is, but in any case, probably you can talk directly with them and just to reassure that we appreciate very, very much the work you all do. Without you, we will be lost and you do an excellent job, but if you have something specifically, yeah, just say it. Thank you, thank you. So there are other members that would like to take the floor? Carolina Morace, please, the floor is yours.
Carolina Morace
È inaccettabile e offensivo in questa commissione sentir ridurre l'identità femminile alla sola dimensione della maternità. Essere donna non è sinonimo di essere madre. Questa visione limitata è esattamente il tipo di agenda ideologica che ci allontana dai problemi reali e concreti. Quando una donna chiede protezione, giustizia o sicurezza, non lo fa in quanto madre, ma in quanto persona i cui diritti fondamentali sono minacciati. Le istituzioni devono rispondere a questa esigenza universale senza discriminare o imporre etichette.
Mentre discutiamo di concetti ambigui, milioni di donne, madri o meno, affrontano ogni giorno violenza, precarietà e mancanza di servizi. I 191 milioni di euro di cui parliamo devono servire a finanziare soluzioni tangibili per tutte, non a promuovere una visione patriarcale e riduttiva. La dignità di una donna risiede nella sua persona, non nel suo ruolo familiare. È ora di abbandonare questa retorica e di lavorare per un'uguaglianza reale che rispetti l'identità e la libertà di ogni singola donna. Grazie.
Giusi Princi
Grazie. Anyone else? If not, I would like to give back the floor to the rapporteur, Giusi Princi, you have the floor for two minutes. Thank you.
Grazie nuovamente, Presidente. Ho ascoltato con grande attenzione gli interventi dei colleghi e desidero ringraziare ciascuno per il contributo serio e puntuale.
Io tengo a chiarire alla collega del di S&D che intanto la scelta del relatore è una decisione che dipende dai coordinatori e quindi anche la commissione FEMM è stata coinvolta ovviamente in questa scelta. E poi magari penso che ci sia stata qualche distrazione nel leggere prima il file da parte della collega perché il mio ufficio lo ha trasmesso giovedì 3 settembre, la scadenza era il 4 settembre e come ha detto poc'anzi la presidente della commissione il rapporto è stato mandato già da qualche giorno a tutti quanti i colleghi che come si vede avete avuto la possibilità di di leggerlo puntualmente e di rappresentare le diciamo i personali contributi. Per cui ringrazio nuovamente tutti quanti, aspetto i contributi di ciascuno affinché il file possa essere appunto una sintesi delle posizioni univoche del Parlamento. Grazie.
Lina Gálvez
Grazie. I hope that will be that will be the case. I'm I'm completely sure that we will manage to to do it. For us it's extremely important that we manage to do so, that we achieve that goal because it is probably the place in which we are more represented as a committee. We are representing more this Parliament and then European citizens.
So it is extremely important contribution we do each year to this very important conference that normally take place in in in New York. So I'm I'm sure that will be the place. It is also a very important topic as we have discussed especially because everything is speeding up especially the effect of climate change and these very unequal outcomes in in people. So thank you, thank you very much. I I wish you a very good job achieving this this common this common goal and that we will be able really to do an excellent job regarding the commission member states and also our role in New York.
And now we have in five minutes the next point which is gender mainstreaming network. I know there are a lot of votes going on. Myself I have to go to vote to ITRE. I will be back as soon as I finish my vote and I hope we will have enough colleagues for this gender mainstreaming network but I'm I'm aware that there is a lot of voting going on at the same time. So we will restart in in five minutes and see you in a moment.
Thank you.
Dainius Žalimas
Dear colleagues and guests, I have an honor to chair gender mainstreaming network meeting and it's time to start. So first of all, I would like to express warm welcome to all the participants at the gender mainstreaming network meeting. I would like to remind you that the meeting is not web streamed, but it is public and anyone can attend it. The second item in our agenda is the adoption of the draft agenda itself. So if there are no changes proposed, the draft agenda of today's meeting I think can be adopted, right?
Then the next item is adoption of the minutes from the previous meeting. If there are no objections, the minutes of the meeting of 14th April 2026 also I think can be approved. Thank you. Now the chair's announcement. Firstly, I would like to inform you that this year gender equality week will take place during the first week of November from the 3rd to 8th of November 2026.
The chairs of committees and delegations have received my letter or the chair's letter, informing about it. This initiative has established itself as a standing and firmly rooted annual event of the European Parliament. Thanks as well to your steadfast commitment, we have witnessed the success of six European gender equality weeks organized by the European Parliament over the past years. Therefore, on behalf of the FEMM Committee, I would like to invite the European Parliament committees and delegations to continue this important initiative in 2026. I hope that a lot of committees and delegations will join the seventh European gender equality week by organizing various events addressing gender equality issues in their areas of competence.
I would greatly appreciate your personal support and involvement in this. Secondly, I would like to inform you that the FEMM Committee is starting its work on the annual activity and monitoring report entitled Gender Mainstreaming in the European Parliament Annual Report 2025. The report is being drafted by co-rapporteurs Ms. Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová from Renew and Ms. Alice Kuhnke from the Greens. The draft report will be presented at the FEMM Committee meeting on 12th of October. On the same day, we will also have a presentation of EPRS study called Gender Mainstreaming in the European Parliament.
And now it's time to exchange our views on gender equality and artificial intelligence. For today's exchange of views on gender equality and artificial intelligence, I would like to warmly welcome our two speakers. First is Ms. Lucilla Sioli, who is the director of the EU AI Office within Directorate-General Connect at the European Commission.
She is responsible for the coordination of the European AI strategy, including the implementation of the AI Act and international collaboration in trustworthy AI and AI for good. The directorate is also responsible for research, development and innovation activities in artificial intelligence and for the implementation of the AI innovation package. Second is Ms. Naja Bentzen, a researcher and policy analyst at the European Parliamentary Research Service, which provides research and analytical support to members of the European Parliament. She has authored and contributed to reports and briefings such as EPRS briefing on women in the age of AI-enabled disinformation. Today we will explore the critical intersection of gender equality and artificial intelligence.
The rapid advancement of AI presents both opportunities and threats for gender equality. While AI can help bridge gaps in education, healthcare and employment, it can also reinforce stereotypes and discrimination. Therefore, I would like to open our exchange of views by inviting our speakers to take the floor for their introductory remarks. Following their presentation, I will open the floor to all the members for their contributions and questions. So, please, Ms. Lucilla Sioli, the floor is yours for 10 minutes.
Thank you.
Lucilla Sioli
Thank you very much, and thank you in particular to MEP Zalimas for inviting me to this event. I think it's very important because as he said at the beginning, we are living in a very transformative world right now. It's due to geopolitics, like we all know, but it is also due to very fast technological change, in particular in the area of artificial intelligence. And the discussion today is important because artificial intelligence, AI, like many other areas of what we know as ICT, information and communication technologies, is an area where female representation is limited and this has an impact on the way the AI works and also very likely on the decisions that are made about the evolution of artificial intelligence. And I am the director of the Office of Artificial Intelligence in the European Commission.
The numbers for us are not very balanced when it comes to men and female. We had to recruit very quickly last year 80 specialists in artificial intelligence and it was very, very difficult to find a significant number of female representation in that. And this is because I guess that there is a lower participation to the technical kind of education that is required in this field. So for me, it is clearly difficult also to make a bit of a career, including in the institutions. This is probably happening everywhere.
And therefore in the past we have been applying policies of mainstreaming the gender participation and I want to highlight the fact that this is not a need just because of fairness, but this is very much a need also because of competitiveness and the role that women have in the promotion of growth and innovation.
So, if we look at the world of artificial intelligence, the maybe lack of participation of women is very often linked to lower levels of skills in this area, this is of technical skills in particular, and this reflects, it's not a new trend, this reflects what we have seen for the ICT professionals over time. Just to give you an example, because these are robust numbers that come from Eurostat, we have an objective in the European Union which is to have about 20 million ICT professionals by 2030, so working in AI but also working in other areas. I can tell you there are areas like semiconductors or other areas which have even a lower level of participation of women. And right now we only have half of these 20 million, so we are just above 10 million women or female ICT professionals. And this shows the size of the challenge that we have.
And also only about 20% of ICT specialists and one third of STEM graduates are women. So this, we can look at this in two ways. One way is to say we are really lagging behind and this is a problem. The other way of looking at this is to say, but this is a great opportunity actually, because we know that if we could fill this gap, we would have a greater participation in our workforce of these specialists and therefore we could also have an important impact on our competitiveness. As you know, we are lagging behind in the area of AI when it comes to the different levels of the AI stack.
Certainly you read every day about the very powerful AI models that are developed in the, mostly in the United States and in China, and not so much in the European Union. And you certainly read every day of the fact that many of the talented people in the United States that are building these models are actually from the European Union. So here we have an issue of participation in terms of studies undertaken, but we also have an issue of very brilliant people that go abroad and we are not really able in the European Union to retain people, and this is both of course men and women. So we have been trying in the European Commission to put forward programs to help education first of all, but also retaining people. So for example, the Union of Skills package focuses on strengthening education and lifelong learning to prepare for the transformation.
In fact, it's important also to keep in mind that AI is not only a matter of being able to develop software or able to develop the hardware that enables AI, but it is also about the transformation of our whole society. So the workforce will also need to have skills that are adapted to an AI world, and the citizens also need to have the right skills to be able to live in an AI world where public services will be increasingly AI-enabled and so on. So as part of the Union of Skills package, we invest in digital education and AI literacy so that every citizen can really navigate AI. We have a program called Girls Go STEM, where we want to have a certain participation of girls into STEM studies. We have put in place various digital skills academies, the most recent one is on AI, and so this is about having online courses to adapt also in the workforce in the different sectors to the reality of AI.
And then we have in the Digital Europe programme and in Horizon Europe, we have certain projects very much dedicated to women, in particular the Women TechEU project supporting female founders in startups. We have the EU Code Week, which has been going on now for a while, but which was very well anticipating the fact of how important programming was. I mean, today a lot of programming is done by AI, but still those who can program with AI are people who can actually program a bit in the first place. Even if you just have to prompt things, you still have to know what you actually prompt. So I think that the capability of coding, even the basics of coding, remain very important to have.
And then we have a project called Connecting Women in Digital. And this is about looking at the pipeline behind and improving gender balance in the ICT profession. And then from the legislative point of view, I want to highlight the role of the AI Act. So the AI Act is the first comprehensive piece of legislation on AI. And this legislation is important because its objective is to make sure that our fundamental rights and our safety is respected in the world of AI.
And one of the risks that AI brings to our world is the risk of discrimination because AI works with, you know, very huge amounts of data. And if we don't pay attention, or if we feed the AI badly, the AI can bring about results that are significantly biased. I will give an example in healthcare, for example, there have been a lot of discussions of the fact that AI is very often working with data coming from men, and then the results are applicable to men, but people don't know and they just apply them to men bodies and to female bodies. So the AI Act in reality forces the developers to take into account the data governance and take into account the fact that the data have to be representative of the intended use of the artificial intelligence itself. Of course, the moment we move to a world of general purpose artificial intelligence with these very large models and systems, this problem can become more acute if we don't pay attention and should certainly be kept in consideration.
So I just want to, you know, if we look at the data as I said earlier, the data show that there is a large gap in ICT, there is a large gap in AI, and these data are not really moving. We don't see any significant progress, to be frank with you, in these data. And I like to think in any case that this is a long-term effort and it has to be continued. And sometimes it is not very encouraging to see the slow progress in when looking at female participation into the digital world. And but I think this is an issue that needs to be continued to be reminded of, and that's why I very much appreciate the meetings like today.
And I think that only if we can increase the role of women in the area of ICT and in the area of AI, we can really stay competitive because we need the point of view, we need the efficiency, we need all the characteristics that the skills of female can bring about.
And I don't think this is just the outcome of the efforts of any particular one institution. I think it's a collective efforts. It's not shouldn't be taken seriously only at the European level, it should be taken seriously in all the member states, in all the regions. And it should be taken care by governance, governments because they care about fairness and competitiveness. It should be taken care of by companies because they have to think of the additional skills that the female workforce can actually provide.
It has to be taken care by educators because they have to help people to achieve their maximum potential. They have to be taken care by investors because they also maybe want to earn money and there is a lot of money to be earned by through the female potential. And it is really essential for our prosperity. So it's not just a matter as I said at the beginning of equality and fairness, but it's really a matter for our future prosperity. So we really want to make Europe a place where every talent is recognized.
We have to become much better to keep the talent in Europe. But still this should not be considered a disadvantage for all those that want to undertake technical studies in the area of digital. We really need that and we really need education to bring up students exactly to perform this kind of studies, remain in the European Union, have the possibilities to combine our female let's say objectives in our life which span of course beyond work. And I think that I really would like to still while I'm working and I'm not retired yet, I really hope to see some progress in this area because it's really an area that needs to be taken seriously if now we don't want this transformation of the society led by AI bring us to even backward relative to where we are now. I think unfortunately this is a risk, but it is also a great opportunity.
So we will continue pushing governments and education to take the necessary steps to make sure that we are well represented also in the digital world. Thank you very much.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. Nice to see you again. And now I would like to give the floor, well first of all to thank Mrs. Salimas for taking care of of this chair during I was voting in ITRE for important files apparently at the end we were more than was we were asking so many people to go that at the end we were more, but never mind. So now we have Nadja Benson from the European Parliament Research Service. So you have the floor for 10 minutes and thank you for coming.
Naja Bentzen
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you to the gender mainstreaming network for inviting me to present some examples of AI-related pressures on gender equality and women's rights in addition to what Mrs. Teoli has already mentioned.
We in EPRS are currently preparing a briefing on the topic that will likely be published in the coming weeks, so you will have everything I say and more in writing. And you are always very welcome to reach out for more information, including in-person briefings or tailored analyses. Next slide, please. So I'll briefly mention some reported AI-related opportunities to advance gender equality and women's rights and then move on to selected examples of known challenges that have already materialized as listed on this slide. Next slide, please.
First the positive. The 2026 UN report on women's and girls' rights and AI mentions some examples of the positive potential of AI. In India, efforts to democratize access to AI literacy. In Nigeria, AI has been used to create a virtual market for small-scale vendors where women are outnumbering men by three to one. AI can assist information verification.
Code for Africa, for example, has used AI tools to map online hate speech against women and identify misinformation that harms women. Real-time translation tools can enable women with fewer resources to build, scale, and share their ideas, but of course provided that women with fewer resources actually are able to access and make full use of these tools. Next slide, please. At the same time, the UN report also found that out of 133 AI systems, 44% demonstrated gender bias and that 20% of responses by AI chatbots showed sexist or misogynistic attitudes. The report deemed the policy response in general too weak.
Only 24 out of 138 countries included gender in their national AI strategies. So let's look at some examples of AI-related challenges to gender equality that have already materialized. Next slide, please. UN Women has found strong evidence that AI technologies already play a significant role in online violence against women human rights defenders and activists, journalists and media workers, writers and other public communicators, sorry. The UN survey showed that nearly one in four respondents said that they had experienced AI-assisted online violence.
Next slide, please. You've already received a link to our EPRS briefing on the topic of AI-facilitated gendered information manipulation, so I will go very quickly over this point. The External Action Service has documented a 259% rise in AI-enabled information manipulation in general in one year. Unfortunately, we don't know the share of identity-based or gendered disinformation in this, but we know that it is emotion, not facts, that is the main driver for engagement and which is at the core of the tech platforms' business models. And gender and identity-based narratives spark strong emotions.
Next slide, please. Generative AI exacerbates existing challenges, including manipulation of the training and output of AI chatbots, and I'll come back to that. It can enhance precision and scale of information campaigns. It can fine-tune shock-driven information dynamics and it can drive dopamine addiction, which can provide a gateway to further manipulation and exploitation.
Next slide please. The popularity of new generative AI tools has created a wave of non-consensual intimate imagery, NCII, such as sexualized deepfakes, that can be seen as a form of technology-facilitated gender-based violence that affects millions of women worldwide. According to a report from 2023, 98% of all deepfake videos are pornographic, and 99% of those targeted girls or women, including women parliamentarians. Next slide please. Bias in large language models is very well documented.
The output of the models tend to reflect or amplify existing patterns of bias. One example is academic literature reviews where the models consistently fail to mention female authors in female-led literature, and even attribute real women scholars' work to hallucinated male scholars. Outcomes can also be engineered specifically. Some geopolitical actors are learning to fill training data gaps strategically and game the output in that way. You can also impact the training and output by creating data gaps, for example by deleting websites and other online resources that refer to equality, women in leadership, gender-based violence, in effect making these topics invisible.
Bias in large language models can impact financial equality. A study from last year found that AI chatbots proposed much lower salaries to women compared to men with identical profiles. In a specific case from Kenya, fintech AI lending algorithms offered women much smaller loans than men, and that translated into a 37% underfunding penalty for female entrepreneurs compared to men. Next slide please. AI tools are used more and more in healthcare, but as Mrs. Sioli mentioned, some models downplay women's physical and mental health issues compared with men's, which can affect the care they receive.
Some applications are tailored to women specifically. The very lucrative Femtech industry, focusing on reproductive health and wellness tracking technology, includes digital apps, wearable devices, and AI software. And a key part of the Femtech market is menstrual or cycle tracking apps, or CTAs. They are promoted as tools for empowering women to better understand their reproductive health, but they are not medical technologies in the traditional sense. They collect and analyze health information, sexual preferences, hormone levels, pregnancy status, contraception use, moods, alcohol consumption, diet, medication, and often sell these data to advertising firms, tech companies, and AI companies.
And that has raised concern that data from CTAs can be used to not only influence consumer behavior, but also potentially to influence other behaviors, including political behavior, which has broader implications of course for democracy. Next slide please. The economic impact of AI appears to be affecting women more than men. Women are nearly twice as likely as men to hold jobs with a high risk of AI automation. Next slide please.
We already, we have already seen and heard that gender gaps in the tech industry impact the development of the digital information sphere in general.
In the AI industry, less than one third of staff worldwide are women. Only 15% of executive positions in the industry are held by women according to the World Economic Forum. And on top of that, 20% of men in the tech industry think that women are naturally less suited to a career in the sector. And all that, of course, decreases the impact of women on these technologies. Next slide please.
So in light of all this, it may not come as a surprise that women tend to trust AI less than men. Women are 25% less likely to use AI than men. New research has shown that this gender gap in trust is not due to, or use, is not due to women's lack of AI skills or interest or even access to AI as many may assume. In fact, evidence shows that the more knowledge and understanding women gain about AI, the more cautious they tend to become. And women mention the lack of transparency and the opaque nature of AI tools as a contributing factor to lowering the level of trust.
Women are also aware of the gender gap in the perception of the use of AI. Women who use AI to create, next slide please, women who use AI to create a CV in the same way as men do are perceived as incompetent while men who use AI in an identical way are seen as showing initiative. So if I may just highlight one key takeaway, next slide please, as a conclusion, or takeaway, the AI-related challenges to gender equality that I have mentioned intersect with a number of the top global risks listed by the World Economic Forum this year: unchecked technology, disinformation, societal polarization, inequality, and pressure on human rights. But the gender aspect is almost invisible in the report. And again, that will be reflected in the training data and the outputs of the large language models.
Thank you.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you, thank you very much. A lot of information and a lot of things we have really to think about it and to react, not only in this FEMM committee but obviously in all our committees, why we are doing that on this gender mainstreaming network. So now I will give the floor to the members that are present here and ask for the floor, starting by Christine Singer, representing AGRI and from Renew. So the floor is yours. Thank you.
Christine Singer
Ich werde Deutsch sprechen. Vielen herzlichen Dank. Vielen herzlichen Dank für die Vorträge und für Ihre Impulse und ich kann Sie nur unterstützen, dass wir diese Probleme angehen. Wenn wir über Geschlechtergleichstellung und künstliche Intelligenz sprechen, dann dürfen wir ganz grundsätzliche Voraussetzungen nicht vergessen, nämlich diese Technologien muss man überhaupt nutzen können. Und gerade Frauen im ländlichen Raum dürfen bei der digitalen Entwicklung nicht zurückgelassen werden.
Und dafür brauchen wir flächendeckende Breitband- und Mobilfunkzugänge, aber auch digitale Kompetenz, es wurde ja angesprochen, und einen einfachen Zugang zu den neuen Technologien.
KI bietet enorme Chancen, auch für landwirtschaftliche Betriebe, für Unternehmerinnen und auch für neue Arbeitsplätze im ländlichen Raum. Und gleichzeitig entstehen neue Risiken, auch das wurde angesprochen. Deepfakes ist ein großes Thema und wir hören immer öfter von täuschend echten KI-generierten Stimmen, die bereits für Betrug und Manipulation eingesetzt werden. Besonders sind dabei die Geschichten, wenn etwa die Stimme des eigenen Kindes nachgemacht, imitiert werden und Menschen unter Druck setzen. Deshalb brauchen wir hier neben klaren Regeln vor allen Dingen Aufklärung und Sensibilisierung.
Für mich bedeutet diese echte Gleichstellung tatsächlich, egal ob Frau, ob Mann, ob Stadt oder Land, wir müssen die Chancen der Digitalisierung nutzen können, aber vor allen Dingen auch vor den Risiken dazu geschützt sein. Dankeschön.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you. Borja Jiménez Larrace, AFCO, EPP, please, the floor is yours.
Borja Giménez Larraz
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Dear colleagues, I want to speak on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, and I would like to thank you for this interesting exchange on a very timely and relevant topic. In the AFCO Committee, we are also currently working on an own-initiative report on the institutional aspects of artificial intelligence in the context of European integration. The report looks, among other things, at how AI can affect our democratic institution, our decision-making, and the participation of citizens in democracy.
One of the ideas in the report is to create a European Parliament AI Observatory to monitor AI's ongoing impact on democratic processes, institution, and fundamental rights. It could help identify possible problems related to human rights, discrimination, and equal treatment. The report also supports the idea of a dedicated international convention or treaty on artificial intelligence at global level. It is important that the development of AI respects our fundamental rights and the principle of non-discrimination. Such an international treaty could help to set common rules and make sure that these principles are respected also outside the European Union.
The draft report will be adopted in AFCO on 1st October, and I think that it can contribute for this objective in a really good way. Thank you very much.
Lina Gálvez
Thank you. May I ask if the amendment process still open, or do you know?
Lina Gálvez
Just because it will be an open call to all of us probably to participate since, well, I think it's very timely and very important, but just would like to say that the number of women that are entering in politics, especially young women, is decreasing, basically linked to the gender-based violence we received in the digital world, that it is very focused, and also this is a kind of disincentive for women to get into politics or into the public life because the kind of violence we are receiving is very sexualized, very explicit, and very personal. So that it is making less women participate, and so this is essential it is taken into consideration in the AFCO report. So I make a kind of an open call for that. So thank you, thank you.
Borja Giménez Larraz
So thank you, Chair, for your contribution. I have to recognize that I am not exactly what kind of amendments have been presented at this moment, but yes, we will take this into account. Thank you.
Lina Gálvez
Okay, thank you. I will try to follow as well because I think it is, in order if we want really to preserve democracy, this is especially important. So talking about young women entering politics, Sabrina Repp, S&D, so the floor is yours.
Sabrina Repp
Thank you very much, Chair. I will speak in German. Vielen Dank für die Präsentation und die Einblicke. Ich habe ein paar konkrete Nachfragen und möchte beginnen mit Frau Sioli.