11 | - Número: 006 | 30 de Outubro de 2012

I call on all of you to be messengers for the Convention in your respective countries and to ask for its ratification so as to transform this text into a living instrument. We are now at a turning point, where we can take a decisive acceleration.
Be responsible.
Act because you feel responsible.
Promote the Convention, ask for its ratification! This cannot be just another dead paper, while so many millions of women keep being aggressed, and thousands of them are killed all over the world, all over Europe, just because they are women, at the hands of their husbands and ex-husbands, partners and ex-partners, boy-friends and ex-boy friends.
I simply cannot understand why should a man beat a woman, when everything on his life is so much dependent on women. I don’t know who to thank for the following inspirational sentences, but I will say it my way, I will add it my voice:

“He was a tiny little seed, that growth in a woman’s body.
He came to life, crying, and calmed down into a woman’s arms.
He was hungry, and was feed by a woman’s breast.
He tried to walk, and a woman guided his first steps.
It was a woman who teaches him how to pronounce his first words.
When he faced life, a woman incentivized him and molded his character.
When he discovered the appeal of love, a woman made him dream.
He felt lonely, and choose a woman as companion for life.
He wanted to multiply, and a woman gave birth to his sons and daughters, sharing with nature the creation of life.

Why should a man, so much depending on a women, not respect them, love them, protect them? At the end of it, why should a man not be more man?” Let me make a confession to you. For much time in my life, I was like many others. Remaining silent, not acting, in front of the signs and cries of aggression. Private matter, we used to say! And did nothing! Not called the police, the ambulance, not gave a word to our neighbor, to our colleague, to our friend.
I have never raised a hand against a woman in my life. But since I became a militant on combating violence against a woman, I feel I became a better man!

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Relatório referente à participação do Deputado Ferro Rodrigues (Vice-Presidente da Assembleia da República), na Conferência Europeia de Presidentes de Parlamentos, no âmbito da Assembleia Parlamentar do Conselho da Europa (APCE), que teve lugar em Estrasburgo, nos dias 20 e 21 de setembro de 2012

1. Organizada pela Assembleia Parlamentar do Conselho da Europa (APCE), decorreu em Estrasburgo, no Palácio da Europa, nos dias 20 e 21 de setembro de 2012, a Conferência Europeia de Presidentes de Parlamentos.
O Vice-Presidente da Assembleia da República, Dr. Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, participou na Conferência, em representação da Presidente da Assembleia da República, tendo sido acompanhado, pelo Presidente da Delegação da AR à Assembleia Parlamentar do Conselho da Europa, Dr. João Bosco Mota Amaral, e pelo Secretário-Geral da AR, Dr. João Cabral Tavares.
2. O principal objetivo destas Conferências consiste no reforço da democracia através da cooperação entre os Parlamentos Nacionais e as Assembleias Parlamentares. O programa desta Conferência (Anexo 1),