SPD on equality and diversity

The SPD wants more women in paid work and wants to close the gender pay gap. Social professions are to be paid better, and moving from part-time to full-time work is to be supported.

Women often earn less than men. The SPD wants to change that. Jobs in care and social work should pay more. Women should find it easier to move from part-time to full-time. There should be more advice for women.

The program sees a need for action mainly on the gender pay gap and involuntary part-time work. The state program Frauen in Arbeit, with its network office Frauen im Beruf, is to grow as an easy-access counseling service. The aim is for more women to take up a job or increase their hours. The SPD points to lower daycare fees as its contribution so far to balancing family and work.

The SPD wants to give people with disabilities more participation in housing, work, health care and leisure and involve them in decisions. For sheltered workshops, it seeks nationwide pay in line with minimum wage rules.

People with disabilities should be able to take part everywhere. The SPD wants more help with housing and work. Sheltered workshops should pay like the minimum wage. Public information should also come in easy language.

Personal and technical assistance is to be developed and funded for housing, work and social participation. Integration assistance will be reviewed for responsibilities and effectiveness, and decisions on support should come faster. The SPD rejects placing people with disabilities in homes for the elderly and wants to expand alternative forms of housing, especially cooperative ones. Employers and employees are to get active support in the labor market. Staff training and specialized wards are planned in hospitals. Culture, leisure and public information are to be accessible without barriers.

The SPD wants a parity law so that half of the state parliament's members are women in the future. In companies majority-owned by the state, a women's quota is to apply to supervisory and management boards, and the state budget is to be analyzed for its effect on the sexes.

The SPD wants more women in important positions. Half of the members of the state parliament should be women. A law should make sure of that. State-owned companies should get a quota for women. The state should check how it shares money between women and men.

The program argues that women face structural disadvantages, do more unpaid care work and receive lower pay. Management boards of state-owned companies with more than two members are to include at least one woman. Saarland is to get a gender equality strategy, and committees, offices and posts are to be filled equally where possible. Equal opportunity officers, women's associations and family counseling centers will keep receiving support. The SPD also backs family working-time models and wants to encourage young people to choose careers beyond old role patterns.

The SPD wants to set up a state program that covers the cost of contraceptives for women on low incomes. Couples who are involuntarily childless would get financial help with fertility treatment regardless of their sexual identity. The party also wants more counseling for women with unwanted pregnancies.

The SPD wants to help women with little money. The state would pay for their birth control. Couples who cannot have a child would get money for fertility treatment. This also applies to same-sex couples. There would be more counseling for pregnant women.

The contraception program is modeled on the biko pilot project run by pro familia. The platform calls women's sexual and reproductive rights inviolable and counts access to freely chosen, reliable contraception among them. Beyond the mandatory counseling, a statewide and diverse range of counseling services is to be created for the women concerned. Financial support for fertility treatment is not to depend on the sexual identity of the prospective parents.

The SPD wants to treat racism as a cross-cutting issue and draw up a comprehensive prevention strategy against discrimination. People affected are to get easily accessible contact points and better support. Public administration is to become more open to cultural diversity.

The SPD wants to do more against racism. There would be a plan against unfair treatment. People affected should find help easily. Contact points would be set up for them. Public offices should also become more open to people from other cultures.

Training and counseling services against discrimination are to be expanded. For the contact points, the platform points to models in other German states. To draw on their experience, the SPD wants to start a dialogue with everyone involved. The party justifies the plan with growing aggression toward minorities, which it wants to counter with solidarity for those affected.

The SPD wants sexual and gender identity to be protected in Article 3 of the Basic Law, Germany's constitution. It plans a strategy against homophobic and transphobic hate crime. The needs of queer people in health care are also to receive more attention.

The SPD wants to protect queer people better. Queer means, for example, lesbian, gay or trans. The constitution should name this protection. There would be a plan against hate crimes. The police would get a dedicated contact person.

Homophobic and transphobic violence is to be recorded separately in crime statistics, and the police are to have a designated contact person. In health care, the SPD wants to pay more attention to trans people in particular, including in self-help groups. The plan includes education, so-called safe spaces and stronger community structures in rural areas. Shared accommodation facilities are to get their own protection plans and, where needed, special protected spaces.

The SPD wants to make fighting violence against women, especially domestic violence, a priority of its gender equality policy. An independent body is to monitor how the Istanbul Convention is implemented. Shelters and support services are to be expanded and reliably funded.

The SPD wants to protect women better from violence. A new office would check whether the state does enough. Support services would get more money. Every woman should find a place in a shelter. Men who are affected would also get protection.

The Istanbul Convention is a Council of Europe treaty against violence toward women. Organizations such as ALDONA e.V., Nele e.V. and the women's emergency hotline are to be expanded, and a counseling center with services from several providers is to be set up. The platform promises every woman access to a funded shelter place and backs a "second stage" aftercare program for the move into a home of her own. The "Kraft in der Krise" psychological service is to get permanent funding, and couples counseling and work with perpetrators are to be expanded. Victims are to be supported through to criminal proceedings, and police and justice staff are to be sensitized.