WE MUST CHANGE CULTURAL PATTERNS

We've managed to present the topic of gender equality in public as being very important, which resulted in changing the attitude towards this issue. There are now no serious actors on either the left or the right of the political spectrum who haven't included this issue on their agenda. Of course, much remains to be done in practise to make women and men more equal.

The position of the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality has been vacant since May of this year. The damage this causes has been pointed out by numerous experts and non-governmental organisations dealing with the topic of discrimination. While we await the government’s appointment of a new Commissioner, we spoke with Brankica Janković, who headed this institution for the last four years. She says that the amount of damage done by not naming a new Commissioner depends on the perspective. “I wouldn’t be so bold as to give such an assessment, because only the citizens can assess how much this has created problems for them,” says Janković. “In a situation in which we face a risk of enormous proportions and great unknowns, it is difficult to assess anything realistically. I can only say with certainty that this institutions always provided citizens with timely and effective protection against unequal treatment in any form and area, and it operated especially effectively during the pandemic, when no one in the institution was spared and we did everything in our power to help those who need it, and to do so in the shortest possible time, because the legal deadline of 90 days and procedures are not useful in a sate of emergency, when people’s health is endangered or daily functioning is hampered. In addition to my regular job, I also volunteered continuously for the Serbian Red Cross.”

Do you consider that the issue of amending the law to prevent this problem from recurring to be among the priorities of the government? - Perhaps not at this moment, when public health and the preservation of citizens’ lives should be the top priority, of course along with the preserving of our healthcare system, but I believe that such a will still exists and that this issue will be resolved in the period ahead.

Since the establishment of this institution and during your mandate, to what extent has it managed to change the situation when it comes to discrimination against women? - My assessment is to a large extent based on arguments that I can confirm - a large number of successfully resolved complaints of citizens, and success implies that the Commissioner’s recommendations for the elimination of violations of rights have

been respected and implemented, and that additional hygienic prevention measures. If discrimination has been eliminated in many we add to this online education for children individual cases. There were cases when a – women who’ve had such obligations have female citizen only had to indicate that she been seriously burdened, if they hadn’t would file a complaint to the institution previously fought for equality in the private for that potential discriminator to stop. sphere, which is mostly undervalued in the We also managed to present the topic equality agenda. The other side of the coin of gender equality in public as being very actually showed how much and what kind important, which resulted in changing the of capacities women have, and served to attitude towards gender equality, although remind political actors about how valuable the situation is of course far from ideal. women are as a resource of society. Take a It was on 5th March this year that the Euro- reflects the situation regarding equality pean Commission presented its Strategy for for women. Gender Equality for the 2020-2025 period. What are the most important recommen- Have we missed the opportunity to deal dations that we should adopt ourselves? with domestic violence sufficiently during - Serbia is on a good, European track when this period? it comes to this issue, and our strategic We must preserve the right - We missed a lot of opportunities in our coundocuments also contain almost identical goals/recommendations as the European to decide for ourselves about try and around the world, here I’m primarily referring to knowledge about the virus and document, which is quite expected given our body and our health, increasing capacities for different types of that we are firmly on the path of European and we must be ready for emergencies – we could certainly have done integration. It is also a fact that no EU member state has achieved equality between a great struggle – there are even more to combat the spread of infection and test our systems for some new disasters women and men to date. Progress is slow, no arguments supporting a that probably won’t bypass us in the future. as stated in the mentioned document, while different opinion, because This also relates to violence against women, gender differences still exist, mostly in the areas of employment, salaries, care and that is a huge achievement of but, again, we must ask how realistic it was to pay special attention to that issue under pensions. In order to bridge these gaps and civilisation in terms of women’s such extraordinary circumstances. Instead enable Europe to utilise its full potential in human rights we need to pay enough attention and allocate business, politics and society, the Strategy enough resources in the regular state of afalso defines targets that relate to ending gender-based vio- fairs to see where we’re still lacking in the protection system, which lence (33% of women were victims of physical and/or sexual has improved significantly over the past few years, but it is worth violence, while 55% were sexually harassed), breaking gender working, mostly on prevention and changing cultural patterns. It stereotypes, eliminating gender differences on the labour is good that we have leaders in public life, albeit only a few, who market, achieving the equal participation of genders in differ- are ready to send clear messages about the unacceptability of ent sectors of society, combatting differences in wages (the violence and the obligation of the state to provide protection. EU average is 16%) and pensions based on gender, eliminating look at our political scene today – it truly gender differences in the area of care and achieving a gender Movements aimed at banning abortions are strengthening in balance in making decisions and policies. many countries. Do you believe that something like this can also happen in Serbia? Many believe that everything that had been achieved in the - Anything can happen anywhere. An intelligent person will struggle of the feminist movement was undone with the ar- never say that something is impossible in our country – if people rival of COVID-19? What is your opinion on what happened have done something somewhere. That should be the red line to women’s equality in this period? of attack on women’s human rights. We must defend them by - The realistic picture is slightly more complex in practise and all means if and when necessary. We must preserve the right there are two sides to the coin, like everything in life – on one to decide for ourselves about our body and our health, and we side are the measures for prevention and protection against the must be ready for a great struggle – there are no arguments virus, particularly various restrictions burdening the economy, supporting a different opinion, because that is a huge achievewhich have led to a gender gap as a consequence in many areas, ment of civilisation in terms of women’s human rights, and we especially in the economy, and women have been hit much harder. mustn’t at any price allow a situation where little girls as us to One cannot express the difficulty of living and working from home tomorrow what we did and how we went backwards by a cenwhile simultaneously taking care of most family members, with tury. What is the authority that should convince us otherwise?