Members of the Women’s Parliamentary Network (WPN) met with a delegation of the National Council on Gender Policy under the Belarusian Council of Ministers, and female members of the republic’s parliament.
Having wished a warm welcome to the delegates, Vera Paunovic, the WPN chair, presented the work and achievements her network had accomplished in the three years since the establishment.
“Eighty-four women – a third of all MPs – have taken up the seats in the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, and the Women’s Parliamentary Network has managed to encourage more women to take a more active part in Serbia’s politics and economy,” Vera Paunovic underlined.
“I also need to note that the network relies on support from the civilian sector and the Government of the Republic of Serbia, which launched a five-year Plan of Action for the Implementation of the National Strategy for Improving and Promoting Gender Equality for the period 2010-2015, greatly assisting our efforts. Three national conferences and one regional have been organized by the WPN since the establishment, attended by female MPs from 10 states of the region,” Paunovic explained.
Stefana Miladinovic, a WPN member, said she wished to make the guests more familiar with the work of the informal group.
“We feel a constant need to increase the number of women we work with within the region, and this meeting has made it possible. The Women’s Parliamentary Network was created spontaneously, when 84 women joined the parliament, only a few of them with previous parliamentary political experience. It was the need I first mentioned that was behind the birth of this informal group, which also shaped its goals,” Stefana Mladenovic said in her speech.
Ljiljana Malusic, another member of the network, said the members did come from different parliamentary groups, but they nevertheless worked closely together to reform the national legislation as to improve the status of women and children not only in local communities, but at the national level, too.
Deputy Chairperson of the Standing Commission of the House of Representatives on Health, Physical Culture, Family and Youth Policy Elena Shamal of Belarus said that over the past two years a series of campaigns had been launched against domestic violence. Shamal added that her country had not only improved the relevant national laws, but also set up 106 offices within the Social Protection Center, where female victims of violence could ask for help. Admittedly women in Belarus are still not ready to talk about their problems, and defend themselves against physical, psychological and economic abuse, Shamal concluded.
Irina Petkun, a member of the Council of the Republic of Belarus and director of the Rechitsa District Grammar School, stressed that Belarus had opened three offices to target violence perpetrators, expected to produce not only diverse general benefits, but also a set of clear guidelines for a violence prevention strategy.
The Belarusian delegates said it was very important that 36 social groups were actively dealing with welfare issues back home, struggling to end and prevent violence against women and boost female entrepreneurship. Women account for 30 percent of the Belarusian parliament, even though there is no specific piece of legislation to specify their numbers.
The officials attending the meeting agreed that Serbia and Belarus had chosen similar strategies to expand social protection and fight against violence. The Women’s Parliamentary Network invited the Belarusian delegation to attend the next regional conference of European female MPs.
The delegation of the National Council on Gender Policy under the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus included 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.