In our country, and in the world, one of the ways to talk about social problems are conferences, one-day, multi-day, half-day. The signatory of this text attended and participated, and by God she organized many, and was always unpleasantly surprised. Namely, it rarely happens that one of such gatherings produces a concrete result. You do your best to gather all the important actors, to enable them to meet, network and organize, you hope that some initiative or pressure group will emerge from this... Instead of results, you get something like a psychological support group: gather people who think alike, eat each other, drink coffee and leave. Because of all this, the fact that the Women's Platform for the Development of Serbia is celebrating its second birthday since it was signed on November 2, 2014 in Palić, and that it is alive and still producing results, inspires hope that it is possible to gather a large number of important actors in one place, and then, regardless of all political and ideological differences, convince them to agree on a single document.
PALIĆ PROCESS: The initiators of the platform also call this document the Palić process. It all started in Palić back in 2000, when the first conference was held, with the idea of helping women, women's perspective and women's needs become visible and influential in the public space. Its goal was to contribute to democracy in Serbia. It may not seem like it today, but in 2000, gender equality was "the last hole in the pipe". That hole in the pipe hasn't moved much even 16 years later, but there is still progress. And that progress didn't happen by itself, some women and men worked for more than a decade and a half to make it happen. The next conference in Palić was held in 2006, with the European path as the guiding idea. And finally, Palić 3, in 2014, turns to development problems and results in the document "Women's Platform for the Development of Serbia 2014-2020". It was hellishly difficult, say the initiators and organizers. Ministers, MPs, NGO activists gathered in one place.
women, university professors, journalists, entrepreneurs, scientists, etc. All of them take different political positions, even diametrically opposed. For some among them, it is impossible to imagine that they were in the same place at the same time, and that everything passed without incident. However, someone managed to unite them at least on one important issue. It turned out that the issue of gender equality is not just another issue, but a key one, one that permeates all other social and development problems, and that without gender equality, there is no progress for a European country that aspires to become a member of the European Union. To make things even better, the Women's Platform is not limited to a demand for the promotion of women's rights. This document demands equality because it achieves a better quality of life for everyone - both women and men, which once again leads us to the conclusion that both men and women are victims of patriarchy, and that the only remedy for this is constant work to improve gender equality.
Let's repeat one more time, because it is extremely important: The Women's Platform brought together female ministers in the Government of Serbia, parliamentarians from both ruling and opposition parties, entrepreneurs, artists, activists and academic citizens. Despite mutual differences and disagreements, they united around the platform, signed it, and then continued to do what they promised in this document. And they promised the empowerment of women and men in all fields, with the aim of this society achieving uniform and sustainable development. Last week, on Friday October 29, the actors of this Platform gathered once again in Belgrade to present the results of two years of work. There is no segment of life in Serbia that the Women's Platform has not covered. Therefore, we will enumerate them, no matter how long the list may be: rule of law, anti-discrimination, human security and violence against women, agriculture and sustainable development, health and sports, entrepreneurship and employment, political participation, budget and management of public policies, social policy and care economy , education and science, culture and media, women and new technologies and women's union organizing.
THERE IS MOVEMENT: Two of the listed topics deserve special attention, because whoever follows gender equality knows that few people deal with them: rural development through the position of rural women and gender-responsive budgeting. So let's start in order to explain where we are when it comes to these two topics.
Rural women are probably the most neglected vulnerable group. Nevertheless, prof. Branka Lazić from the Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad pointed out some good trends. When it comes to organic food production, about 25 percent of women participate in it, in contrast to conventional production, where they are between 14 and 19 percent. However, prof. Lazić emphasizes that there are no precise statistical data. It encourages the constant growth of ecological production, which is very important for sustainable development and the increasing number of women participating in it. In those parts of Serbia where women's rights organizations are active, progress in this field is drastically greater than where there are none. That's why, for example, in Vojvodina, thanks to systematic education and systematic financing of projects for the empowerment of rural women, the number of those exercising their rights is constantly growing, and they are slowly starting to network. A few days ago, the Network of Rural Women was founded in Vojvodina.
The problems, however, are still the same: health care, access to education, placement of children in kindergartens, etc. most threaten the economic empowerment of rural women. In addition, there is a huge gap between registered agricultural households and large agricultural companies: the percentage of women employed in agriculture is very low, while in reality a huge number of them work in households. Professor Lazić especially emphasized that rural development is not only agriculture, but that it depends on a whole series of economic, social and cultural factors. According to her, on the basis of the Platform, key problems that need to be solved were identified, an analysis of progress was made and future steps were planned.
The biggest progress was made in terms of gender-responsive budgeting. What is it really about? Sanja Nikolin from the Women's Platform for Development explained that this kind of budget planning of the Republic of Serbia is a way for gender equality to enter all the pores of the system. Moreover, the new Law on the Budget System obliges budget users to dispose of budget funds in a gender-responsible manner. Last year, 347 people were trained for this kind of budget planning, and this year another 110 people were trained. This year, gender-responsive budgeting was implemented by 28 budget beneficiaries in Serbia and ten in Vojvodina. Sanja Nikolin pointed out that the only problem exists with the municipalities, which justify that they are not obliged, however, the law obliges them to do so from this year. "Only when programmatic, that is, gender-responsive budgeting moves forward, will we know what we have achieved from our program goals," said Sanja Nikolin. In her opinion, the most important thing is to address the topic of unpaid female work and to consider the impact of tax policies on the citizens of Serbia.
THE DARK SIDE: However, we are still far from having roses blooming in terms of gender equality. Commissioner for Equality Brankica Janković pointed out that women in Serbia are still the most exposed among all groups that suffer discrimination - of the total number of cases of discrimination dealt with by the Office of the Commissioner for Equality in the last year, 25 percent were gender-based discrimination against women. The fight against violence against women is also a critical point. Progress is visible only in the number of adopted laws and procedures, but their implementation does not exist, so the enacted acts are not reflected in the real life of women. Biljana Stepanov from the Women's Support Center emphasized that multisectoral cooperation does not exist, and that the good functioning of institutions depends on the personal enthusiasm of the individuals who work in them: "As soon as those people are transferred to another place, everything stops again." Stepanov wondered about what kind of fight against violence against women are we talking about when we know that from the beginning of 2016 until the day of the conference in Serbia, 28 women died in domestic and partner violence. In the period between the conference and the day of writing this text (Monday, October 31), that number increased by two more.
When the history of the creation of the Women's Platform is followed, the conclusion is self-evident: even the smallest change requires a lot of time, patience and persistence, and it also requires people who do not give up easily. The essence of the fight for gender equality was perhaps best summed up by Prof. Marijana Pajvančić: "The right to equality is universal. We are fighting for it, our children will fight, our grandchildren will fight too. We may never be able to fully fulfill that notion with content, but we will continue to fight."
