Today, in the National Assembly Building, the representatives of WPN had a meeting with the representatives of the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Team and Virginija Langbakk, Director of the European Gender Equality Institute. The meeting was used as an opportunity to present the Gender Equality Index – gender equality measurement in Serbia in 2014. Gender Equality Index was designed by the European Gender Equality Institute, in order to allow a comprehensive measurement of gender equality, and it was being conducted in line with the EU policy context, which Serbia aims to align with during the accession process. The European Institute for Gender Equality updated the Gender Equality Index every two years, and in 2015, it launched a new version. The survey was implemented in the areas of labour, money, knowledge, time, power, health, violence, and crosscutting inequality.
This was the first time the Gender Equality Index was calculated for Serbia. It showed that Serbia isn’t even halfway there to reach the desired gender equality level, lagging behind the EU by 12%. The Director of the European Gender Equality Institute Virginija Langbakk underlined that it was necessary to urgently act in areas of labour, money, knowledge, and time, which were the areas with a low score and a wide gap between the genders. The area of power showed somewhat better results, due to the quota system in National Assembly, and the fact and the fact that the Governor of the National Bank was a woman. The best results were noted in the area of health.
The Coordinator of WPN Ljiljana Nestorović highlighted that gender equality should be built and improved primarily in areas that concern daily life, such as employment, economic empowerment and elimination of gender-based violence. Therefore, she proposed to organise an additional meeting in order to create mechanisms that would change the current situation.
Gordana Čomić said that the priority was to amend the Law on Government, in order to insist of parity, meaning that there had to be 50% of women in the government. “If we have a reasonable society, then we have innovations. I believe that women should be the innovation in politics. Not only in Serbia, but also in Europe,” said Gordana Čomić.
Dubravka Filipovski quoted the recommendation of the European Parliament to have 40% of women in all large companies by 2020, underlining the importance to continuously monitor the implementation of this recommendation. She agreed that it was necessary to achieve parity in the executive branch of power, referring to the fact that in Serbia there were only a few women directors or mayors. Ms. Filipovski believed that, for a better position of women, it was necessary to
achieve changes within the political parties themselves, as well as to continuously work on the economic empowerment of women. The meeting was attended by Ljiljana Nestorović, Sabina Dazdarević, Gordana Čomić, Nevena Stojanović, Dubravka Filipovski, Elvira Kovač, Vera Paunović and Olena Papuga.