SPD on equality and diversity

The SPD wants to implement the state's framework program on gender equality and counter the structural disadvantaging of women. The focus is on fair pay, the sharing of care work and more women in leadership positions.

The SPD wants women and men to have equal chances. Women should get fair pay. More women should become bosses. The state has a plan for this. The SPD wants to carry out that plan.

Women's and equality policy is to stay with one central office in the state government. The program points to measures for more women in leadership in the state administration and to agreements with the universities in Greifswald and Rostock. The SPD wants to work for gender-sensitive medical care. The Landesfrauenrat (state women's council) will keep receiving support, as will women's political involvement.

The SPD wants to implement the federal Gewalthilfegesetz (violence assistance act) and expand the support system in the state, including women's shelters and counseling centers. The judiciary is to be made more aware of gender-based violence, and the SPD calls for a federal law against digital violence.

The SPD wants to protect women better from violence. Women's shelters should be modernized and made bigger. Counseling centers should get better conditions. Judges should learn more about violence against women. There should also be a law against violence on the internet.

The Gewalthilfegesetz will create a legal right to protection and counseling. Additional investment funds are to be used to modernize women's shelters and enlarge them where needed. Voluntary training on femicides and the Istanbul Convention is planned for judges; the topic is also to become part of legal education. A federal law on digital violence is meant to give victims effective rights and close gaps in prosecution.

The SPD wants to push at the federal level to stop treating abortion as a crime and to delete Sections 218 and 218a of the Criminal Code. Universities in the state are also to teach abortion as a medical procedure.

Abortion is in the criminal law today. The SPD wants to change that. The rules on it should be removed from the criminal law. The federal government decides on this. Future doctors in the state should learn how to perform an abortion.

Sections 218 and 218a currently govern when abortion is punishable and the exceptions. The SPD wants to argue at the federal level for deleting them without replacement. In the state, it wants to make sure that abortions up to the end of the twelfth week are taught at universities not only from an ethical and legal angle but also in medical practice.

The SPD wants to defend marriage equality and the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz (Self-Determination Act) and better protect queer people from discrimination. At the federal level it calls for adding sexual identity to the Basic Law and for full legal equality for rainbow families.

The SPD wants to protect queer people better. Queer people include lesbians, gay men and trans people. Marriage for all should stay. The constitution should ban unfair treatment because of sexual identity. Families with two mothers or two fathers should get the same rights.

State policy is to follow the Landesaktionsplan Vielfalt (state action plan on diversity), which will be developed further with the community. The rainbow flag should still be allowed to fly on public buildings. Counseling for trans, intersex and nonbinary people is to get a long-term footing, and Pride (CSD) events will keep receiving support. For people with special protection needs, including LGBTIQ* people, the SPD wants safe housing and trained contact persons. Equality for rainbow families concerns federal family and parentage law.