Latest news with #Kanko
Time of India
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
From Burkina to Belgium, fighting women's corner from benches of hard-right
BRUSSELS: When Assita Kanko was 10 years old, she pictured herself as president of her native Burkina Faso -- with a mission to stamp out female genital mutilation, and further women's rights. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now As it turned out, she sits as a Belgian lawmaker in the ranks of the hard-right in the European Parliament, and says that suits her just fine. The 44-year-old says she feels at home among the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) -- one of three groups in the assembly's far-right bloc, whose influence has grown steadily since elections last year. As one of three EU lawmakers from the Flemish nationalist N-VA party, she rubs shoulders in the ECR with around 20 other outfits including Giorgia Meloni's post-fascist Brothers of Italy, and Poland's PiS. She also crossed paths with Meloni at the inauguration of Donald Trump -- where they were both handpicked, as likeminded European politicians, to welcome the US leader back to office. Despite divergences with some ECR members on "ethical" issues, Kanko pushes back at criticism of her decision to join the N-VA, a staunchly conservative party with a tough line on immigration. "The idea that a black woman cannot also be right-wing is outrageous," she told AFP. "I want the right to think and I take that right to think, I don't ask permission." Fighting for women's emancipation has been a cornerstone of her life in politics, she says. Born in Godyr, Burkina Faso, in 1980, Kanko was subjected to female genital mutilation at the age of five -- like three quarters of women in the country. She shared her trauma from the experience in a 2013 book, the first of four she has written about gender equality. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now "If my mother had had means of her own, I am convinced I would not have been circumcised," she said. "Today I am a very independent woman -- and no one would dare mutilate my daughter. That has to be the goal." - EU being 'trampled' - A "top of the class" high-school student in Burkina Faso -- in her own words -- Kanko left to study in the Netherlands in 2001. From there she would move to Belgium -- where speaking both Dutch and French proved a boon to her career, in the private sector then as a municipal official in a district of Brussels. Fast-forward to 2018, and Kanko decided to jump ship, leaving the centre-right MR party for the N-VA -- the political home of Belgium's current prime minister, Bart De Wever. "I feel unstoppable, free and proud to be a new Flemish woman," she explained on the party's website at the time. Kanko describes herself as pro-business, as a sovereigntist -- attached to the role of national governments within the EU -- and as a fervent Atlanticist. That's how she explains her decision to attend the swearing-in of a US president who has made clear his disdain for the -- which he says was founded to "screw" the United States. "The United States is a partner we cannot do without," she said. "We have to form a bloc to defend Western values in the world." But Kanko also warns that "unless we believe in our own power, our own priority and strategies, Donald Trump will walk all over us." As it stands -- with a transatlantic trade war brewing and US security support in question -- she considers "the European Union today is being trampled underfoot -- and not just by the United States." "It's trampled on by countries in the Middle East too, trampled on by China, trampled on by Russia, trampled on by radicals living on our own territories," argued Kanko -- who was raised in a Muslim culture but did not adopt the faith, and sees Islamic extremism as a threat. In the EU parliament, Kanko has focused on security and border control -- and has sought to spotlight a report sounding the alarm about the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to secularism and women's rights in France and beyond. Kanko wants to see the organisation investigated at European level. "We need to wake up," she told fellow lawmakers in parliament recently, accusing the brotherhood of "indoctrinating children" and "treating women as inferior."
Daily Mail
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Dreaded EU fingerprint registration to be rolled out in coming months - with fears of travel chaos at borders looming
Britons travelling to Europe without EU passports will be forced to have their fingerprints registered or their pictures taken on arrival from October. The new strict entry and exit system (EES) will be launched in a 'progressive' manner across six months. The EES was meant to launch on November 10 last year but was postponed due to fears of chaos at airports and ports. After consideration The European Council and parliament have now agreed to launch the system, The Times reported. 'We will no longer let the slowest pupils hold the whole class back,' said Assita Kanko, the Belgian conservative MEP responsible for the EES system at the European parliament. 'The safety of Europeans can no longer be postponed.' While the roll out does begin in October, all countries will have to use the new system by the end of the following six-month period. The EES has sparked concerns over travel chaos in airports and Germany, France and the Netherlands argued they were not ready at the time of the planned 'big bang' November launch. The three countries - which handle a heft 40 per cent of all non-EU traffic into the bloc - said they struggled to install the IT infrastructure needed in time. Ms Kanko insisted that 'the EES is not just a security measure; it also aids legal fewer queues and increased certainty.' However, this claim of improved efficiency has been met with scorn by the travel industry - news of the scheme raised fears of queues and longer waiting times for people travelling to Europe on trains, ferries and planes. Officials at the Port of Dover said they expect the processing time for cars to increase from one minute to up to seven minutes. And last summer, they were bracing for delays of up to 14 hours when the EES was still going ahead in November as Kent County Council warned jams could be 'much worse' than 23-mile tailbacks seen in 2022. The Department for Transport gave £10.5million for border upgrades like the huge processing area newly installed in Dover. While the Eurostar terminal in Kings Cross, London, have built 49 kiosks for the EES before reaching security and the French frontier. France said they would need more police at the border last year to avoid immigration chaos while airlines have already been warned that the new system could mean passengers could be held on planes to prevent overcrowding at European terminals. EasyJet CEO Johan Lundgren warned last November that the new rules could leave British tourists stranded on planes, unable to disembark into packed EU terminals if the system was not guaranteed to function efficiently. He called on the officials tasked with implementing the EES to develop a pre-registration system that would help frequent travellers to quickly pass the checks and facilitate speeding up the process. The launch date for November was chosen over fears that the implementation any earlier would severely disrupt the two major sporting events last summer - the Rugby World Cup and the Paris Olympics. But at the last minute, officials decided they still weren't prepared enough. It was the third time that the EES was postponed after its initial proposal in 2017 to replace manual passport stamping - or 'wet stamping'. Non-EU visitors can expect to be digitally monitored for the duration of their stay on the continent. Currently, Brits can stay 90 days in the EU in a rolling 180-day period. Once the EES has been taken up by all the countries, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (Etias) will begin, where travellers will need to apply for a waiver before visiting. This will be valid for three years or until a passport expires and it has been compared to the US Esta (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation). Visitors will have to do this online and approval could take up to 30 days for complex applicants. It will be free for children and the elderly but cost €7 for anyone aged between 18-70.
