BOJANA BOGOJEVIC - LAW SOCIETY

GENDER EQUALITY IN ” GOVERNANCE GENDER EQUALITY IS A HUMAN RIGHT, NOT A DECISION! ”

On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at a historic UN Summit officially came into force. One of the SDG’s included SDG no.5 - Gender Equality at the heart for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

Human rights must be guaranteed and secured to every member of society. Without equal opportunities, conditions and restrictions for the respect and enjoyment of human rights, a democratically organised state cannot be implemented. It is important to highlight that Gender Equality entails that both men and women have equal opportunities for exercising human rights.

If we look on life’s basics one must query: Do we really think women have the same opportunities or are women still disadvantaged to male dominance in any field, lacking meritocracy into consideration. Are women equal?

The answer is still yes in 2020. Women and men are most times victims of various forms of discrimination. Unfortunately, social, political, labour law and many other inequalities are still very much represented.

- Globally, 750 million women and girls marry before the age of 18 and at least 200 million women and girls in 30 countries have undergone female genital mutilation, FGM.

- The rates of girls between 15-19 subjected to FGM in 30 countries where the practice live and real have dropped from 1 in 2 girls in 2000, to 1 in 3 girls by 2017.

- In 18 countries, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working; in 39 countries, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights; and 49 countries lack the laws protecting women from domestic violence.

- One in five women and girls, including 19 percent of women and girls aged 15 to 49, have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner within the last 12 months. Yet, 49 countries have no laws that specifically protect women from such violence. 

- While women have made important in-roads in a political office across the world, their representation in national parliaments at 23.7 percent is still far from parity.

- In 46 countries, women now hold over 30 percent of seats in the national parliament in at least one chamber.

- Only 52 percent of women have married or in a union, freely make their own decisions about sexual relations, contraceptive use and health care.

- Globally women are just 13 percent of agricultural landholders.

- Women in Northern Africa hold less than one in five paid jobs in the non-agricultural sector. The proportion of women in paid employment outside the agriculture sector has increased from 35 percent in 1990 to 41 percent in 2015.

- Over 100 countries have taken action to track budget allocations for gender equality.

- In Southern Asia, a girl’s risk of marrying in childhood has dropped by over 40% since 2000.

The goal for introducing gender equality into the mainstream is the transformation of inequitable social structures into structures fair for both women and men. In the corporate world, some observe that companies that have a high representation of women in leading positions have been actively working on it for decades. In order for a single corporate policy to strive for gender equality to succeed, not only individual attempts by directors or individuals in managerial positions are sufficient, it is necessary to include the entire management.

In 2006, the European Union EU adopted the EU Roadmap for Gender Equality, which sets out 6 priority activities within which the EU will undertake activities to achieve gender equality.

The activities defined by the Map are:

1. Economic independence for women and men

2. Reconciliation of professional, private and family life

3. Equal participation of women and men in decision-making processes

4. Eradication of all forms of gender-based violence and trafficking in human beings

5. Elimination of gender stereotypes in society

6. Promoting gender equality outside the European Union

Gender equality in the EU considers necessary preconditioning for achieving growth goals, employment and social cohesion. Successful companies are constantly working on gender equality with the human rights leadership in three very important areas: the development of talented women, the planning of successors and the measurement of results but the HR sector must be a team of well-educated people in corporate, law and psychology fields. It is essential that the company’s leaders be active and have a strong faith and a desire to implement gender equality.

It is important to note that economic empowerment of women and the benefits derived from it aren’t denied by anyone, not only from the perspective of women’s rights but also from the point of view of economic progress and productivity itself. It is a simple case, if we really want to have a business world that will function, we have to fight for equal representation of the sex, not leaving half the population out of it.

Equal opportunities policy requires proactive access, especially from state-provincial government bodies. It is necessary that an approach aims at achieving the set goals and assumptions that women and men have in reality and practice and enjoy the same rights and freedoms, without being deprived of any form of direct or indirect discrimination. Despite the existing legal obligations, it is still necessary to further improve corporate knowledge and practices in women’s rights and gender equality, to contribute to building a strong interaction between actors from different sectors, including the state sector and civil society, who will actively work with the joint forces in the promotion of gender work in their relations with the business community. Promoting gender equality in the business community is reflected in programs targeting women’s employment, the most significant of which is the one that focuses on continuous education and learning throughout life.

Women are still under-represented in top positions in many areas, although they make up almost half of the workforce and more than half of new university staff graduates in the European Union. All theories of good corporate governance and corporate practices agreed that boards are the key to making an efficient business decision and proper supervision of companies.

The corporate world recognises a good gender balance at all levels used for business is a process by which women integrated in multiple positions in companies are still very slow. Progress made in Europe in reducing gender disparities is very uneven and there are big differences between the countries from the north and west of the continent and those that are located to the south and east of the same. Despite everything, women still have to make more efforts to succeed in advance to the boards of directors of the companies in which they work. Women are paid an average of 8,000 Euros less than men, as the economic crisis due to the COVID 19 pandemic is continuing to deteriorate day by day.

Based on all the mentioned factors, we can conclude that there is no single and exhaustive definition or instruction of good governance,” nor that there is a provision that commands universal acceptance. The term good corporate governance is used with a great deal of flexibility which can be an advantage, but also a source of difficulties that occur at the operational level. Depending on the context and the goal that the management wants to achieve, good corporate governance at all times is; full respect of human rights, rule of law, effective participation of all actors, political pluralism, transparent and responsible processes and institutions, access to knowledge and information, political empowerment of citizens, fairness, an efficient and effective public sector, the sustainability of the attitudes and values they nurture responsibility, solidarity and tolerance.

To ensure sustainable production and consumption, multinational companies are committed to apply codes of governance and sustainable development and to implement the instruments provided for The OECD Guide for Multinational Companies and the Reporting Initiative UN dealing with the areas of environment, social and corporate governance and they are binding for advocating for equal rights for women and men. It is important to point out that interconnection between good governance and human rights is important for good corporate governance, because it leads to sustainable development in one country. However, the present inequality is centuries old and we cannot expect it to disappear overnight but be aware that it is a long process that requires the participation of all of us, without exception.

We cannot expect men to cede their places in corporate structures to women or resign from the board of directors to contribute to gender equality policy. It is essential that women are prepared to promote others through various forms of women networking platforms. It is crucial to provide support, empowerment, and avoid behaviour known as ‘woman is wolf to woman.’

Leadership development is one of the key points of this process.