Equality for women should not be compromised because of the recession, stressed vice-president of the government María Teresa Fernández de la Vega on Friday.

During the opening of the Santander exhibition ‘Planet Woman’, Fernández de la Vega stressed that every country should make ‘concerted efforts’ to beat the credit crunch and not recur to ‘inequality or social injustice’ to get them through it.

She has stated that equality should be one of the ‘cardinal points’ of the Spanish government and the EU for the first half of 2010.

“It’s impossible to think of creating a new world without including women in it,” she stresses.

“You cannot talk of extending human rights and freedom if it involves effective and real inequality.

“In this situation, we cannot have a fairer, more stable and more just world. Not if we exclude half of its population.”

Fernández de la Vega reminded those present that 70 per cent of the 1,300 million people in the world who live below the poverty line are women, that two in three illiterate people are female, and one in three women have suffered domestic violence.