FEMM

Motion for a Resolution by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality

Error 404 – Women not Found: With the lack of gender-specific data creating gender discrepancies in healthcare, industry, and technology, how can the EU increase the collection and inclusion of this data in its policies in a sustainable, and future thinking manner?

Submitted by: Belle Boswijk, Wessel de Keijzer, Reza Evers, Joel Spezacatena (CH), Gijs Susijn, Sara Swaanen, Julia van der Schaar, Yara van Hoek, Xenia Liebscher (Chairperson, ES)

The European Youth Parliament

  1. Stressing that the data gap is creating gender-based obstacles in various sectors such as health, technology and industry, which can lead to dire circumstances,
  2. Recognising that on a European Level, no clear policy has been created to combat the gender data gap,
  3. Emphasising that the rise in Artifical Intelligence (AI) Technology will increase data bias, 
  4. Noting with regret that only 15% of countries worldwide have legislations in place that order specialised gender-based data,
  5. Deeply concerned that currently 80% of the indicators for gender equality of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have data gaps,
  6. Alarmed by the fact that women only make up 22% of representation in health trials globally,
  7. Deeply conscious that lack of representation in research, policy and in the media further perpetuates the gender data gap,
  8. Bearing in mind that Member States’ governments are free to develop their own data regulations;
  1. Appeals to the European Institute for Gender Equality to identify gender-specific gaps in existing bodies of research in sectors such as health and safety certification, healthcare, and technology;
  2. Hopes that the European Commission combats gender bias within the Artificial Intelligence sector by including the recognition of gender-biased content in the upcoming update of the European Union Artificial Intelligence act1;
  3. Reaffirms the United Nations Women Count Strategy, which aims to incorporate more sex-disaggregated data when attaining the Sustainable Development Goals2;
  4. Invites the European Commission to create a guideline for human-based research to aid the collection of more sex-disaggregated data;
  5. Further asks the European Commission to aid the creation of a gender-inclusive database in European healthcare by allocating funding to projects that aim to fill the gender data gap in healthcare;
  6. Encourages Member States to raise awareness among the general public about the gender data gap through:
    1. launching governmental campaigns highlighting the social impacts of the data gap,
    2. including modules about the benefits of sex-disaggregated data in their respective curricula across secondary education levels;
  7. Calls upon the European Commission to expand on the CE marking3 to include a stamp of certification for products which have undergone sufficient gender-specific testing; 
  8. Suggests the Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion to create an action plan for the EU to include more female perspectives in the process of policy design and decision-making.
  1.  The European Union Artificial Intelligence act (EU AI act)is a law that ensures that AI systems placed onto the EU market are safe and respect existing laws on fundamental laws and Union values. 
  2.  The UN women’s Count Strategy is an initiative created by the United Nations that aims to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by promoting the collection of more sex-disaggregated data within the SDGs.
  3.  CE markingindicates that a product has been assessed by the manufacturer and deemed to meet EU safety, health and environmental protection requirements.