Gender in Europe & CIS

Roundtable “Women and governance in Eastern Europe and CIS,” 11. November 2008, Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Round table in Sarajevo was the last one in the row of round tables that are part of regional project Regional Report on Women and Governance. This project addresses challenges of transition in the region and developing processes that have been occurring in the region without the full participation of women and at the same time weakening women's position in political and socio-economic life. The project aims to identify reasons for women's low participation and mobilize stakeholders and partners to support this effort.

Ana Vukovic and Samra Filipović Hadžiabdić (from left).

The Round table in Sarajevo hosted up to 47 participants from broad spectrum stakeholders such as the governmental gender mechanisms, political party leaders, representatives of non-governmental organizations, media and social groups, who drew attention, on the basis of their experience in the field of political activism, to the most significant factors determining political participation of women. The roundtable provided the opportunity for the analysis of recent trends marking democratic processes and procedures in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a post-conflict country caught up in all forms of transition and in the preliminary phase of preparing the accession to EU.

Opening speeches were given by  Armin Sirco, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative and Samra Filipovic Hadziabdic, director of the Bosnia & Herzegovina Gender Agency. Mr.  Armin Sirćo, the deputy of the UNDP Resident Representative in BiH draw attention to the main goal of UNDP's regional project on Regional Report on Women and Governance, that is to support transition countries in their task of ensuring the implementation of international standards concerning gender equality. He also emphasized the UNDP's determination in ensuring that all UNDP programs and projects include gender mainstreaming with the goal of strengthening one's own capacities. This resulted in the adopting of general strategy at the beginning of 2008 encompassing three areas: (a) participation of women in governance, (b) introducing policies designed to ensure equal representation of women and (c) creating gender-disaggregated databases. Ms. Samra Filipović Hadžiabdić emphasized in her introductory talk the effort made by gender mechanisms in creating environment favorable to increased participation of women in governance. She especially pointed out to the adoption of the Gender Action Plan of Bosnia & Herzegovina, among other things, that defines measures aiming at increase of political participation of women. Nevetheless, some laws are still regarded as more important than others, and such practice leads to devaluation of the Gender Equality Law, the director of the Agency for Gender Equality noticed in the final part of her address.

The roundtable was organized in three thematic blocks:

• Political participation of women in BiH;
• Key issues and trends affecting political participation of women and
• "Participation of women in policy creation ".

Following thematic sessions provided framework to discuss diversity of issues related to women and governance: 

• Key issues and Trends affecting Women’s Political Participation - the major trends on women’s low political participation in Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Mechanisms to promote women’s political participation - best practices on related to the participation of women in politics, as affirmative measures, political party system; electoral system in Bosnia & Herzegovina.
• Gender Equality Law – i.e.the legislative mechanisms to promote gender equality, lessons learned on the implementation of the Bosnia & Herzegovina Gender Equality Law.
• The Enabling environment for women’s political participation - good practices, challenges and opportunities on the role of the institutional gender mechanisms, civil society networks, the media and the social and regional context in improving the situation of women and governance in Bosnia & Herzegovina.
• Women’s participation in policy-making – issues related to women’s participation at local, regional, national level on the policy making process, mechanism to promote the inclusion of women’s needs into the policies.

Klelija Balta, BRC Gender Practice presented to the participants some of the significant indicators concerning political participation of women in EE and CIS, indiciating reduced political participation of women in the EE and CIS countries, which calls for a necessary analysis of causes of such condition along with suggestions to concrete activities to challange them She presented example from Poland pointing out to one of them - lacking connection between the civil society and female politicians, and stated that female politicians do not sufficiently use the civil society capacities in the promotion of gender equality.

Jasminka Džumhur, a local expert, presented indicators of political participation of women in  Bosnia & Herzegovina showing that there are very few female political leaders in BIH, which has a negative impact on their political activities, because they not only represent a minority within their party structure but also within the political body to which they have been elected. This imposes significant limitation to make afforts for advocating gender equality principles, even if women involved have been sensibilized for the gender issues. Representation of women in the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BIH amounts to 11,9%, in the House of Peoples of the PABIH to 13,33%. A particularly upsetting issue is a low representation of women in the working bodies and permanent delegations from which women are entirely excluded, just to name one of the examples: only one out of nine members of the Gender Commission is female.

Irena Hadžiabdić, a member of the Central Election Commission of Bosnia & Herzegovina (CEC) focused in her presentation on the issue of participation of women in the local elections held in Bosnia & Herzegovina. For example, there were only 36 women (6,36%) among 566 registered candidates, and 10.189 women (35,91%) among 28.371 registered candidates for the municipal council. Gender structure of the candidates elected in the municipal council: 469 women or 15%, and only 4 or 2,85% elected female municipal majors.

The representative in the House of Representatives of the Parliamentray Assembly BIH Azra Alajbegović focused on the issue of law implementation in BIH, stressing that though draft laws are offered for public discussions, women very rarely engage though explaining it by attitude of widespread conventional opinion “this is for others, let others read and decide..., I can not take the responsibility“, and alike.  

Gordana Vidović, NGO "Budućnost (Future)" from Modriča, focused in her presentation on the phenomenon of sophisticated discrimination against women in the BIH political life and on the lack of political culture particularly manifested during the election campaigns in which the political parties do not equally promote male and female candidates. She also relfected on the role of the NGO activist network, however noticing a certain fatigue and lack of enthusiasm in this sector derived from the recognition that the activists' energy is wasted without a remarkable shift in the promotion of political participation of women. Neverthelless, NGO activities, still, particularly during the recent local elections, showed that door-to-door actions and contacts with the constituency proved the most efficient. Finally, she emphasised urgent need for measures to promote and achieve equal representation of women and men in the executive power, where the most important decisions are made but from which women are almost entirely excluded.

During the session "Key issues and trends affecting political participation of women" the representatives of gender mechanisms in Bosnia & Herzegovina presented the existing mechanisms of promotion of political participation of women with special emphasis on the Gender Equality Law and the importance of creating a favorable environment for political participation of women. They underlined the fact that the Gender Equality Law does not have the same impact in the practice as other laws do, which creates an impression of its facultative yet not effective implementation. They especially emphasised the importance of committing all BIH actors involved in the promotion of gender equality to a consistent implementation of the Gender Action Plan adopted by the Council of Ministers BiH.

In the session dedicated to the issue of women's participation in the decision-making specific attention was paid to the phenomenon of excluding women from the decision-making processes from the local to the state level. For example Lejla Somun from the IBHI indicated that women are not the key economic players and that women do not control the economic resources which directly influences the social and gender distribution of power resulting in the exclusion of women from the decision-making processes. Nermina Zaimović Uzunović, a representative in the Zenica Municipal Council and Azra Pašalić, a chairwoman of the Prijedor Municipal Council showed that women normally do not participate in the work of the political bodies on the local level that decide on the use of economic resources, however they also emphasised that the political parties do not support their female municipal councillors after nominating them and therefor primarly, they share the responsibility for such condition.

Since BIH is in the process of transition, the most important political issues affecting women's rights in Bosnia & Herzegovina include: constitutional reforms and the accession to the EU. Roundtable participants agreed that constitutional reforms represent an opportunity to include the gender equality principle and the ban on the discrimination on the basis of sex in the constitution as a constitutional category of equal importance as the principle of ethnic representation.

The roundtable participants have concluded that, despite the existing gender mechanisms in BIH (the Gender Equality Law, the BIH Agency for Gender Equality, the Gender centers of the Federation BIH and the Republic of Srpska, the Gender Action Plan), the political participation of women in BIH is being reduced due to a series of factors. One of significant factors is that legislative and other reforms exclude social measures directed toward ensuring equal participation of women and men in the leading positions, including: (1) reducing the duraton of maternity leave; (2) inadequate legal solutions regarding payment during the maternity leave (3) reducing the accomodation capacity of infant nurseries and kindergartens (4) extended working hours in the service sector such as shops, restaurants, supermarkets, without securing adequate surveillance system. Such social conditions not only removed women from the leading positions but also from the employment in general, depriving them of economic independence.    

Available materials and presentations:

List of Round table participants