SPD on equality and diversity

The SPD wants to make Thuringia an inclusive state and implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Accessibility is to apply in all areas of life, and local social infrastructure is to be geared toward participation.

People with disabilities should be able to take part everywhere. The SPD wants to remove barriers, in buildings and on the internet. Support should be close to home. The rights of people with disabilities should be written into Thuringia's constitution.

The platform calls for implementing the Federal Participation Act and expanding services that focus on the individual and the neighborhood. The "person-centered complex service" developed in Thuringia, an outpatient form of support, is to be funded and used more often. The action plan for the UN convention is to be implemented, along with unified responsibility of integration assistance and youth welfare for children with disabilities. The SPD also wants to write the convention into the state constitution to make these rights more visible.

The SPD wants every law, regulation and budget expenditure to undergo a mandatory review of its effect on gender equality. Further steps include a separate state parliament committee on equality and a pilot project on gender budgeting.

The SPD wants to check every new law. The question is: does it help equality between women and men? The state parliament should again have its own committee for this. Public offices should offer free period products.

According to the platform, no measures are to be adopted anymore that fail to advance equality. Gender budgeting, meaning the alignment of public budgets with equality goals, is to be tested in an academically supported pilot project with at least one municipality, combined with a financial incentive. The separate equality committee in the state parliament is to be reinstated, and statistics are to be published broken down by gender. Also planned are educational programs for men on equality topics, free period products in public offices, more attractive continuing education for women, and gender-balanced membership of the state sports advisory board and the state sports federation's executive board.

The SPD wants women to be represented in Thuringia's state parliament in line with their share of the population. To achieve this, it plans a parity law that stays within the legal framework.

There are fewer women than men in the state parliament. The SPD wants to change that. Half of the members should be women. The SPD wants to make a new law for this.

The goal is for every second member of the state parliament to be a woman in the future. The SPD announces a parity law and stresses that it is to respect the legal framework. It justifies the plan with women's share of the overall population.

The SPD wants to secure funding for women's shelters permanently and make them a mandatory task for counties and independent cities. The Istanbul Convention on protecting women from violence is to be implemented more vigorously in Thuringia.

Women's shelters protect women from violence. The SPD wants them to always have enough money. Cities and counties should have to provide women's shelters. There should also be programs for offenders, so they do not become violent again.

Whether a woman is entitled to social benefits is no longer to matter for admission to a shelter; a special rule is planned for people below the poverty line. Staff and operating costs are to be guaranteed without being renegotiated every year. Monitoring of the Istanbul Convention is to be placed with the state coordination office, and mandatory training is planned for everyone who deals with affected women. Programs working with perpetrators are to be adequately funded. Police crime statistics are to list "hate crime against women" separately, and counseling centers are to take poverty and other disadvantages into account as well.

The SPD wants to require publicly funded hospitals to offer abortions and to set up a state information portal. At the federal level, it advocates removing Section 218 from the Criminal Code.

Women should get information about abortion more easily. The state should set up a website for this. Hospitals that get public money should have to offer abortions. The SPD wants abortion to be removed from criminal law.

According to the platform, women in Thuringia still have trouble finding information even after the advertising ban in Section 219a of the Criminal Code was dropped. A state-run website is therefore to gather information on abortion options and locations in an easy-to-use, accessible form. The obligation for hospitals receiving public funds is meant to ensure statewide coverage. At the federal level, the SPD wants to keep pushing for the repeal of Section 218 of the Criminal Code.

The SPD wants to make International Women's Day on March 8 a statutory public holiday in Thuringia. It is meant to draw attention to the fact that, in the party's view, gender equality has not yet been achieved.

March 8 is International Women's Day. The SPD wants this day to be a public holiday in Thuringia. The day should show: women and men are not yet equal.

The platform recalls that Women's Day grew out of the labor movement. The first International Women's Day in 1911 dealt, among other things, with the demand for women's right to vote. The holiday is meant to point to continuing discrimination based on gender.

The SPD wants to give the state program for acceptance and diversity more money, update it, and appoint a state commissioner for anti-discrimination and queer people. It also plans measures against anti-queer violence and services in health care, nursing care and for refugees.

The SPD wants to protect and support queer people better. Queer means, for example, lesbian, gay or trans. The state program for this should get more money. Police and courts should have fixed contact persons. No one should be treated worse in nursing care either.

Funding is to be secured over several years, the coordination office expanded and the state program evaluated. The SPD seeks a joint federal-state program against anti-queer violence, a campaign, and full-time contact persons in the police and judiciary. Queer centers, CSD Thüringen (the pride event) and youth work services, especially in rural areas, are to be supported. In health care, the needs of trans people in particular are to get more attention and HIV and STI prevention is to be strengthened; care homes and hospices are to receive queer-sensitive training. Also planned are protection concepts for queer refugees in shelters and a historical reappraisal of the criminal prosecution of homosexual people.

The SPD wants to create an anti-discrimination law for Thuringia that also protects against unequal treatment by government bodies. This is meant to close gaps left by the federal General Equal Treatment Act (AGG).

The SPD wants a new law against discrimination in Thuringia. Discrimination means: someone is unfairly treated worse. The law should also apply when public offices treat someone unfairly. The SPD thinks the current federal law is not enough.

The platform justifies the law by noting that the AGG mainly covers civil law and barely reaches government action in the state. The state law is to implement European requirements. Discrimination based on racist attributions and on social status is to be explicitly included. In addition, the term "race" in the AGG is to be replaced.