Meeting between Women’s Parliamentary Network and representatives of state institutions and civil sector, on the proposal of the Law on Equality Between Women and Men

Members of WPN had a meeting with representatives of state institutions and civil sector, in order to discuss the proposal of the Law on Equality Between Women and Men submitted by the Government.
In a constructive discussion, the participants identified those parts of the Law where there was still room for improvement. Their main criticism concerned the very name of the Law: the participants agreed that Law on Gender Equality would be a more adequate and precise name. The Commissioner for Protection of Equality Brankica Janković agreed with this, emphasising that the law proposal was fundamentally good, and that she had given a positive opinion on its draft. She also added that a large number of her comments and suggestions had been included.
The representatives of the civil sector thanked WPN for allowing them the opportunity to raise their voice and state their opinion about the law proposal. They agreed in their assessment that in adopting this Law that aimed to eliminate all forms of discrimination, the state had the opportunity and the obligation to send a clear message on real social values.
The member of the Gender Equality Coordination Body of the Government of the Republic of Serbia Vladimir Božović thanked the participants for a quality discussion, and invited them to turn their comments and suggestions into amendments that they should send to the Gender Equality Coordination Body by February 17th. The Government would give its opinion on these amendments at the session of the Committee for Human and Minority Rights and Gender Equality of the National Assembly.
The meeting was attended by the following MPs: Gordana Čomić, Dubravka Filipovski, Biljana Hasanović Korać, Olena Papuga, Velinka Tošić, Elvira Kovač, Meho Omerović, Stefana Miladinović and Ljiljana Nestorović.
The meeting was also attended by the representatives of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the provincial and local governments, the Group for Initiatives of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Forum, the Gender Equality Institute of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, the Provincial Ombudsman for Gender Equality, UN Women, the Centre for Modern Skills, the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit, and Autonomous Women Centre.