English
Macedonian
15th February 2006, at the „Holiday Inn” Hotel, Skopje, Akcija Zdruzenska
organized the forum: Global and Regional Processes – Gender Equality
Challenges in the Republic of Macedonia as part of the Global Approach
Programme.
62 women and men, NGO representatives, active in the field of gender equality
and human rights, especially women’s rights, and representatives from relevant
governmental institutions and bodies, including international agencies and
organisations active in these fields were invited and participated on the forum.
The basic issue raised as part of the processes taking place in the course of
2005 was whether the Republic of Macedonia had a platform for gender equality?
Last February, the 49th session of the UN Commission on the Status
of Women was held, dedicated to the Beijing + 10 Review. The countries that have
adopted the Beijing Platform for Action were reporting on the progress and
results achieved in the implementation process.
2005 was also the year when the initial, second and third joint interim
governmental report on the Republic of Macedonia’s progress in terms of
attaining the objectives of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women was reviewed. This report was on the agenda for the
33rd session of the CEDAW Committee, initially planned for July 2005,
but held in January this year. The results and recommendations from the first
shadow report prepared by ESE were presented as well.
The Millennium Summit in September 2005, one of the biggest if not the
biggest gathering of world leaders, was dedicated to the five-year review of
attaining Millennium Developmental Goals and further steps to be undertaken by
all UN country-members signatories of the Millennium Declaration. The report on
Macedonia was published last year and it addressed the situation and MDG
recommendations (MDG 3 refers to gender equality).
Last year was important also in terms of European Integration, one of the
strategic goals of the country, especially due to the fact that Macedonia was
granted candidate-country status. Consequently, Macedonia is responsible to work
on the approximation of legislation and its implementation in line with EC law
and standards, which inter alia relate to equal opportunities for women
and men.
The above mentioned international instruments – more or less – treat issues
of discrimination and violation of women’s human rights and gender inequality.
The motive to raise the issue was the content of various reports, information
related to the process of preparation of the reports and the visibility or
invisibility of these issues on the political agenda in Macedonia.
In addition, the need to discuss these issues was the reflection that these
processes in the country were carried out simultaneously – independently from
each other – although they treat closely related issues. Also, the majority of
documents available – to a large extent – point out the manner in which these
issues were treated by the state, which after all has the mandate to deal with
such issues.
Therefore, we thought it would be useful to discuss whether discrimination,
unequal opportunities for women and men and gender inequality were really
priority policy areas that Macedonia should resolve for the sake of justice,
democracy and sustainable development, or whether they constitute an imposed
obligation that needs to be fulfilled from time to time.
Moderators of the forum were: Zarko Trajanovski – M.A. in Human Rights and
Democracy, Jasminka Friscik – Executive Director of the Association for
Emancipation, Solidarity and Equality of Women in the Republic of Macedonia,
Liljana Alceva – Project Manager of Millennium Developmental Goals Projects in
UNDP and Dzenk Sejfula – Manager of the Judiciary and Fundamental Rights
Department Secretariat for European Affairs within the Government of the
Republic of Macedonia. They presented the obligations and progress made in
Macedonia concerning the Beijing Platform for Action, Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the attainment of
Millennium Developmental Goals, and EU standards on equal opportunities. These
presentations were the starting point for discussion on the key issue raised on
this forum.
The feedback of the participant concerning the discussion mainly focused on
the fact that for the first time they had the opportunity to acquire such
detailed insight in Macedonia’s obligations regarding key international
instruments that – at the same time – shed light in the real extremely poor
progress achieved.
The general conclusion of the forum was that there was lack of clearly
defined platform that would reflect the needs and interventions concerning the
policies, capacity, mechanism and resources for their implementation and
monitoring.
The lack of political will for making progress in this field was also pointed
out, especially in light of the fact that most of results attained were NGO
efforts. Changes in the legal framework proved insufficient because of the
necessity for wider promotion of the opportunities offered in terms of
protection, education of actors involved in the implementation of legal
provisions, structure (gender machinery) on national and local level that would
have sufficient capacities and resources for ongoing gender research and gender
mainstreaming in all stages of policy-making, sufficient funds, as well as
established measurable indicators for monitoring progress in the field of gender
equality.
photogalery
