Joke
Swiebel (b. 1941) was elected Member of the European Parliament in 1999.
As a member of the Netherlands Labour Party Delegation she belongs to
the Parliamentary Group of European Socialists. Within Parliament she
participates in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice
and Home Affairs and in the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
She performs an active role in policy areas such as human rights, anti-discrimination
legislation, asylum and migration policies and the drugs issue.
Joke Swiebel is Chairperson of the EP's Gay and Lesbian Intergroup, i.e.
an informal grouping of MEP's and officials of various political backgrounds
working together in order to promote gay and lesbian rights.
Joke Swiebel is a long standing member of the Netherlands Labour Party. She has participated in a series of Party working groups and advisory committees on topics such as women's equality, social security reform and gay and lesbian rights.
Since the sixties, she has also been an activist and a resource person in both the feminist movement and in the gay and lesbian movement.
Joke
Swiebel studied political science and economics at the University of Amsterdam.
After her studies she worked nine years at the same university, first
as a researcher in the economics department and later as head of the political
science library.
In 1977 she took up policy-making for women's equality as her profession
and joined the staff of the first so-called 'national machinery' for the
advancement of women, the Emancipation Commitee, an advisory body of the
Netherlands government. In 1979 she moved to the Department for the Co-ordination
of Emancipation Policy at the then Ministry of Welfare; in 1982 this department
was transferred to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.
From 1979 to 1995 Joke Swiebel worked in this department as a senior civil
servant responsible subsequently for socio-economic and legal affairs,
general policy planning and international relations.
As Co-ordinator for International Women's Affairs (1984-1995) Joke Swiebel
represented the Netherlands government on many occasions at the United
Nations, the Council of Europe and the European Union. Inter alia, she
was head of the Netherlands delegation to the UN Commission on the Status
of Women (CSW) from 1988 to 1995 and Vice-Chairperson of that Commission
(1992-1993). She also headed the Netherlands's negotiating team at the
UN Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and took an active
part in the preparation for that Conference at the EU level.
Joke Swiebel has published numerous articles, papers etc. on subjects such as equality policy, human rights, labour market and social security reform and governmental organization. As a co-rapporteur in the European Parliament she has made a substantial contribution to the new European anti-discrimination legistlation. She is rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the European Union in 2001.
