Manuela Schwesig (born 23 May 1974 in Frankfurt (Oder), East Germany) is a German politician (SPD). She is currently theFederal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

Early life and education

Born in Frankfurt (Oder), Schwesig grew up in the nearby town of Seelow. After graduation in 1992 at the high school (Gymnasium Seelow) on the Seelow Heights, she completed a study of the Advertisement of service in the tax administration of the federal state of Brandenburg. She attended the Training and Further Education Centre (Fachhochschule für Finanzen) in Königs Wusterhausen.

Political career

At 29 years of age Schwesig became a member of SPD. She was member of the SchwerinCity Council from 2004–2008.

Schwesig soon became the deputy party leader of the SPD and Minister of Social Affairs and Health in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Ahead of the 2009 elections, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier included Schwesig, then relatively unknown face to the German public, in his shadow cabinet of 10 women and eight men for the Social Democrats’ campaign to unseat incumbent Angela Merkel as chancellor. During the campaign, Schwesig served as shadow minister for family affairs who advocated the party’s family-friendly policies.

Schwesig was a SPD delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing thePresident of Germany in 2010 and 2012. In 2011, she led high-level talks with ChancellorAngela Merkel and Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen for the then-opposition Social Democrats on reaching a compromise over how to increase basic social welfare benefits for the unemployed.

Following the 2013 elections, Schwesig served as the Social Democrats' main negotiator in the working group for families, women and equal opportunities when Germany's two largest parties, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc and the left-leaning Social Democrats, held talks on forming a broad coalition government.

In the third Merkel cabinet, Schwesig, who at 39 was the youngest cabinet member, became the Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth – a position also occupied by Merkel in her first cabinet post under German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the early 1990s.

At an SPD convention in late 2015, Schwesig received 93 percent of members’ ballots, the best result of any of the party leadership. That same year, the party’s board mandated Schwesig and Thomas Oppermann with the task of drafting an electoral program for the 2017 federal elections.

Political positions

Child protection

Manuela Schwesig is a member of the German Child Protection League (de). Her main focus is to fight child poverty and provide for good state childcare facilities. In 2009 she supported the idea promoted by Minister Ursula von der Leyen to block websites featuring child pornography.

On her order the employees of nursery schools in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have to declare their commitment to uphold the principles of Germany's basic laws (the constitution).

Advancement of women

In 2014, Schwesig helped introducing a bill mandating compulsory quotas for women on the supervisory boards of the Germany’s top companies, which was passed in early 2015. Also in early 2015, she called for a law that would force companies to allow female employees to see how their salaries compare with those of male colleagues. Meanwhile, she has been championing a substantial expansion of state-sponsored child care facilities.

Political extremism

In a 2014 lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) complained over comments made by Schwesig during that year’s parliamentary election campaign for the state of Thuringia. In a newspaper interview, Schwesig had made the comment: "The number one goal is that the NPD does not make it into the parliament." The NPD accused the minister of breaching her duty of neutrality and interfering with the campaign, and made a complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court. But the court ruled in December 2014 that Schwesig did not damage the NPD's right to a level playing field, because her comments fell under the "political struggle of opinion."