The Serbian Committee on Human and Minority Rights and Gender Equality met today with a delegation of the National Council on Gender Policy under the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus, the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia reported in a press release.
The chairman of the Committee, Meho Omerovic, familiarized the Belarusian female parliamentary delegation with the national legal framework designed to guarantee the equality of men and women in Serbia.
“The right to gender equality is guaranteed by the Serbian Constitution and laws, as well as the ratified international agreements. I am proud to say that Serbia has ratified all gender equality conventions, with a strong emphasis on the Council of Europe (CoE) Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, the so-called Istanbul Convention, ratified in 2013”, said Omerovic.
Chairman Omerovic presented to his Belarusian female peers the Office of the Commissioner for Protection of Equality, headed by women since it was established, along with other legal solutions to promote the status of women in Serbia and guarantee their participation in politics.
Omerovic made it very clear that genuine equality was a distant prospect for women without their economic empowerment. Even though there are more women holding high-ranking government offices, which is an obvious sign of progress, there’s still not enough of them where the real power lies, where decisions are made, Omerovic cautioned.
The senior parliamentary official went on to say that over the past two years his committee placed a heavy emphasis on efforts to combat violence against women, fully aware that it was a major social issue. To illustrate the point, he said that 42 women died as a result of domestic violence in the past 12 months alone.
“Beating a wife is not a private problem, it’s the problem the society and the state should deal with,” the leading parliamentarian was explicit.
Dubravka Filipovski and Stefana Miladinovic, two members of the committee, offered to their Belarusian counterparts statistics about women’s participation in the legislative and executive branches of power, and in local governments. They also explained to them the effects of the laws that allowed more women to join Serbia’s political life.
The delegation of the National Council on Gender Policy under the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus, headed by Minister of Labor and Social Security Marianna Schetkina, was particularly interested in the national legislation on gender equality, the equality of men and women in the labor market and the legislator’s duty to endorse gender-sensitive laws.
Apart from the chairman, Meho Omerovic, the meeting was attended by four committee members, Stefana Miladinovic, Dubravka Filipovski, Jelisaveta Veljkovic and Ljiljana Malusic.
The delegation of the National Council on Gender Policy under the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus included Minister of Labor and Social Security Marianna Schetkina, Deputy Chairperson of the Standing Commission of the House of Representatives on Health, Physical Culture, Family and Youth Policy Elena Shamal and Irina Petkun, a member of the Council of the Republic of Belarus, and director of the Rechitsa District Grammar School.