Controversial draft Women's Equality Law up for parliamentary discussion

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

A plenary session of the National Assembly (AN) on Thursday will discuss the draft Women's Equality Law ... officially known as the Right of Women to Gender Parity & Equality Law.

• House Family, Women & Youth committee president Ivan Mastrangelo says last Thursday's session to discuss the bill was postponed because of lack of quorum.

Owing to the national stoppage, the draft law has received little publicity and many of the NGOs supporting or criticizing it, preferred to devote energies to marches and political campaigns for or against the government.

Mastrangelo admits the bill carries a lot of tricky topics ... such as abortion in rape cases, babies in-vitro, equal pay, just to mention a few.

The committee is recommending that the law be declared 'ordinary' and not organic, given the delicate nature of some subjects ... which Mastrangelo insists, will need legal interpretation.