“Strait Ahead” Cracks the Glass Ceiling
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12 April, 2006 09:16
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The First International Conference for Business & Professional Women, titled “Strait Ahead”, held within the framework of the EU programme Gibmacol Interreg IIIA and organised by the Gibraltar Business Network, gathered over 250 women from Spain, Morocco and Gibraltar over the 28th and 29th March. The main aim of the speeches delivered, of which there were over 20, focused on the needs faced by each region, which although different share a common characteristic of experiencing signs of labour discrimination.
The presentations made by the invited personalities from the different territories set the goal of cracking the Glass Ceiling under which women still find themselves in the labour scene.
The head of the Gibraltar Business Network, Maruchi Risso, gave particular emphasis in her speech to the need to strengthen commercial, business and social ties between the three regions, with the consideration that “our frontiers and separate legislatures should not be barriers but an aid to our joint economic development”.
The event opening was presided over by the Minister for Industry, the Port and Tourism, Joe Holliday, who “encouraged women to compete with men”.
On the first day, the 28th March, the presentations covered the discrimination of the woman in different work environments with a view to breaking the barriers that are currently present.
Particularly noteworthy were the presentations delivered by the outstanding women present such as Daniella Tilbury, Professor of Sustainable Development, Macquarie University, Sydney and Director of the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability; Amal Saber, AMFEDES Nord Sud, Morrocco and the Spanish Senator Ana María Chacon Carretero.
The gala dinner which unfolded in the Gibraltar Casino during the evening of the first day started with a public intervention by Chief Minister, Peter Caruana, and concluded with a high level of satisfaction and a good attendance level.
The last day, the 29th March, saw the last speeches, with the greatest demands to change the current women's scene emphasised by the Spanish MP Ana Maríe Fuentes Pacheco “not to be a wolf for the wolves”.
The focus of the closing speech made by Yvette del Agua, Minister for Social Affairs centred on a request that participation in Gibraltar's political life by women be increased.
At the same time, Lydia Durham, ex-executive, spoke of strengthening the women's role in the political sphere within the European state, stating that “we also need EU women parliament members to become the buttress of the professional women in Europe and to give us their firm moral support at all times regardless of culture or national differences”.
The Gibraltar Business Network sets an extremely important precedent, following the concluded conference, to strengthen commercial, social and business ties between the neighbouring business women of the three nearby regions of Spain, Morocco and Gibraltar. Nowadays, the labour situation of women on an international scale presents elements which are in detriment to the achievement of equality. These have been analysed during the First International Conference for Business & Professional Women with a view to abolishing them definitively.
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