However, it is necessary to highlight that the Committee of Ministers should take carefully into account the different situation of women and men within ‘minority groups’, by fully incorporating the dimension of gender mainstreaming.

It is important to highlight the situation of women belonging to minorities, because they are a minority in a minority and are most affected by exclusion. They are affected by marginalisation and exclusion on several levels, since they belong to a group which is perceived as ‘different’; because they are women, and therefore disadvantaged by the lack of de facto gender equality in society; and because of the patriarchal mentality which is widespread in the minority groups to which they belong, which confines them to a stereotyped and subordinate role in relation to men.

Compared to other women, and to men from the same background, women from minority groups have: a lower employment rate; lower salaries and/or worse working conditions; a lower level of education; a lower level of participation in public and political life; they encounter greater barriers to benefiting from social rights; have greater difficulties in having access to justice; and are at greater risk of being victims of violence or trafficking, especially for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

The guiding principles set out in the Eminent Persons’ report say: ‘Under no circumstances can respect for group identity or religious belief be invoked to justify the exclusion of girls from any form of education which is available to boys, or the seclusion of adult women from normal interaction with society outside their home’.

There should be a continuum between the enjoyment of human rights in the home where someone lives, in the community he or she belongs to, and in society at large. In a word, women should be free from being beaten up, from being raped (including by their husbands), from being subjected to child marriages. They should be free to marry the person they choose, to work outside the house, to wear what they like and to reject the cultural traditions if they want to. Diversity is not only here to stay but to grow.

The Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men is happy to see that the Mr Toshev has included in his text a recommendation asking that the Committee of Ministers: fully integrate gender mainstreaming in the implementation of the recommendations of the Living together report; propose positive measures to Council of Europe member states to avoid women from minority groups being subjected to multiple discrimination and to promote their active participation in social, economic and political life; and promote the signature and ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, as well as our additional amendment to the introductory part of the preliminary recommendation, to highlight the specific situation of exclusion experienced by women from minorities and the need to build up their potential bridging role between their communities and the society. Given their role in the education and upbringing of children, women can make a difference in the way in which new generations manage to recompose their multiple identities.

Please, keep in mind that human rights are universal. They are not bound to a region, a nationality or a community.