For the PCP, marking the International Day for the end of violence against women, at work, in the family and in society, is to reaffirm an everyday fight and commitment.

Fight and commitment that is currently expressed in the discussion on the State Budget for 2024, which constitutes an instrument to block the improvement of women's living conditions and the necessary reversal of inequalities and discrimination that weaken their condition and social status.

A Budget that does not respond to the problems that women face in their daily lives, including the steps that need to be taken to protect women who are victims of domestic violence and exploitation in prostitution.

The PCP's proposals in the State Budget

The PCP's proposals in the State Budget aim to increase wages and pensions, stop the increase in prices, restoring purchasing power, reinforce the National Health Service, guarantee the right to housing, increase the number of vacancies to guarantee access of children to free daycare centres, reinforce financial support for equipment and support services in the social sector, along with the creation of a Public Network of Daycare Centres and Homes for the Elderly, among others.

It is an affirmation of the need and possibility of an alternative path, on nuclear matters, that allows women to free themselves from the economic and social constraints that hamper their quality of life and that of their families, that take away their economic and social autonomy, including in family contexts where violence can germinate or worsen.

Added measures, which affirm the distinctive character of the PCP in terms of the role of women's organisations and the reinforcement of the protection of women victims of violence, in which the following stand out:

• The valorisation of women's non-governmental organisations with the reinforcement of financial support from the State, through the State Budget, which allows them to ensure the broad development of their activity and autonomous action in defence of women's rights;
• Annual allocation of funds in the State Budget for support structures for victims of domestic violence that allow them regular financing, stability in human and technical resources, that permanently ensure the fulfilment of their objectives;
• Reinforcement of funds for Programmes aimed at aggressors aiming to prevent the recurrence of domestic violence;
• Increased funds for the prevention or reception for victims of human trafficking, whether in their detection or for shelter structures;
• Guarantee of payment of compensation advances to victims of crimes, to victims of violent crime and domestic violence.

For a strategy of prevention of prostitution and implementation of a project to leave prostitution

The PCP also proposes the implementation of a Strategy to prevent prostitution and promote the conditions for an alternative life project, accessible to all people who want to free themselves from prostitution, encompassing the following aspects:

a) raising awareness in society to this serious form of violence against women that attacks their dignity and rights;

b) prevention of economic and social situations that lead women to be subjected to exploitation in prostitution;

c) support and measures that promote opportunities to leave prostitution for people who decide to free themselves from this form of violence, with a multidisciplinary scope considered necessary, which includes, among others, educational, labour, housing and health support services (physical and psychological) so that the exit from prostitution for people who decide to free themselves from this form of violence becomes a reality.

It's time to change policy! Prevent and combat all forms of violence against women

Strengthening the PCP and the CDU is the safest and most consistent way to affirm an alternative policy that, in a transversal and articulated way, achieves:

• Equality at work and in life, empowering women to decide their lives free from violence at work, in families and in society;
• The end of labour exploitation anchored in the devaluation of their status as workers – precariousness, low wages, wage discrimination due to maternity, deregulation of working hours –, the mainstay of expressions of moral harassment in the workplace;
• The expansion of information to women of different ages, professions, different social origins and different areas of the country, in order to allow them to identify domestic violence, whether physical or psychological, so that they can follow a path to free themselves from it. But, equally, about exploitation in prostitution as a form of violence that attacks the dignity of prostituted women, but equally the dignity of all women;
• The elimination of social inequalities for women, with extreme expression in the lack of means of subsistence and ways out of this situation that throws them into prostitution and turns their bodies into merchandise that feeds a sordid business;
• Implement multiple forms of intervention that aim, on the one hand, to prevent the recurrence of domestic violence by aggressors and, on the other, to put an end to the "normalisation" of exploitation in prostitution, combating pimping and the association of "sex work” to the exploitation of women in prostitution;
• Fulfil women's rights to equality at work and in life because this corresponds to the most consistent way of emancipating them from these forms of violence, contributing to combat the power relations of men over women in the private sphere, but above all to eliminating relations of power at the political level, determined by the dominance of the interests of big capital that constantly feeds and reproduces exploitation, discrimination, inequalities and violence against women.

The PCP extends a special greeting to all women who are subject to discrimination and inequalities, and to those who are faced with situations of violence, affirming its commitment to an alternative policy that ensures equality between women and men, compliance with women's rights and the protection of women victims of violence.

A commitment that is an inseparable part of the fight for the values of April and for a fairer, more solidary and more sovereign Portugal.