Speech Intervent Dobusch

Gabi Dobusch, MP, Parliament of Free and Hanse City of HamburgMax-Brauer-Allee 20G-22765 HamburgMobil: +49 (0)173 84 36 875kontakt@gabi-dobusch.dewww.gabi-dobusch.de[Intervention First Session, WG Labour Market & Social Welfare]Mme Chair, Ladies and Gentlemen,as a member of the working group on Labour Market and Social Welfare I would like to thank everybody involved for the deep insides they afforded me into the social systems and the labour markets in the respective countries.This morning Franz Thönnes gave the report of the working group. I would like to take up one of the issues he already raised: The lack of data.Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, we had been briefed to look specifically into matters concerning disadvantaged groups and gender aspects. The latter proved almost impossible – not because of lack of trying but because of lack of data, gendered data.Now I would have thought that impossible – impossible at this point in time, in the year 2009 -, impossible, when so many EU-member-states are involved. Nevertheless, that was the case.This is even more disappointing because, although many of the proposals of our working group found their way into the draft of the conference resolution, none of our statements on gender issues were taken up by the Standing Committee.However, being an optimist I am confident that all of us will now re-examine this report with a special focus on this aspect, particularly in view of the newly proposed working groups, most especially the working group on human trafficking.Thank you very much.