Project "Woman Today“  has been implemented since 1997, by two nongovernmental organisations  “Udruzene Zene” and Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka. The general purpose of this project is to make contribution to the creation of society with equal possibilities for both women and men, and to link women from different communities in determining priorities. One of the project goals is inclusion of as many women as possible into the public life of BiH and decision-making processes, through education and campaigns.

Within the project “Woman Today XIII”, we plan to organise in 2009 four workshops with representatives of municipal commissions for gender equality and municipal officials from the territory of North-Western BiH, seven public tribunes, five TV shows, press conference, one workshop with women politicians, and regional round table with the topic “From Local Dialogue in our Country to Global Dialogue towards European Integrations”.

This project is financially supported by “Kvinna till Kvinna” Foundation, thanks to donation of Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).

Banja Luka, 10 March, 2010

To: Media in Bosnia and Herzegovina

From: United Women Banja Luka, Helsinki Citizens Assembly Banja Luka

SUBJECT: PRESS RELEASE REGARDING THE PROCESS OF AMENDING BIH ELECTORAL LAW

On the occasion of the announced amendments to the BiH Electoral Law, which will be presented today in the first reading before the representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the NGOs United Women Banja Luka and Helsinki Citizens Assembly Banja Luka sent the request for harmonization of BiH Electoral Law with the Law on Amendments to Gender Equality in BiH, which was adopted on 4 November, 2009.

We believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina has the obligation to the women of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the international, regional and supranational organizations, to ensure the harmonization of these two laws, and thus reaffirm the principle of gender equality in the year when the International Women's Day was celebrated under the slogan: "Equal rights, Equal Opportunities -Progress for All. "

United Women Banja Luka and Helsinki Citizens Assembly Banja Luka want to remind the representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH that Law on Amendments to Gender Equality Law in BiH (BiH Official Gazette 102/09, 29 December, 2009) regulates in the Article 6 that the ... government bodies at all levels of government and local authorities, including the legislative, executive and judicial powers [...] are required to provide and promote equitable gender representation in management, decision making and representation, and equal representation of sexes when there is one gender represented with at least 40% in these bodies ... In any other case, the situation could be deemed as gender-based discrimination...

United Women Banja Luka and Helsinki Citizens Assembly Banja Luka suggested that the Electoral Law in Bosnia and Herzegovina should make the amendments of the Article  4.19 and all the other articles that are referred to this article, in the way to ensure the participation of less represented sex  with 40%, by applying the system of alternating nomination of both sexes on the lists, as well as all the other articles that enable discrimination, especially Article 4.24. of the Law.

8 March 2010 – EQUAL RIGHTS, EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES – PROGRESS FOR ALL

Banjaluka, 4 March 2010

Participants of the public debate, named after the slogan “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities – Progress for All”, under which the 8 March – International Women’s Day is celebrated on the global level, will send the request to for the legislators to respect the quota of the minimum of 40% of women’s presence at the electoral lists in the final version of changes and amendments of the BiH Electoral Law.

The introductory speaker of the debate Natalija Petrić, MA in Gender Studies, point out that this request was in accordance to the Gender Equality Law in BiH and recently adopted Resolution of Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly that has been dealing with the increase of women participation in politics. “However, the Inter-Resource Working Group has not respected this request when they were developing drafts of changes and amendments of BiH Electoral Law”, pointed out Natalija Petric.

The possibility of holding a peaceful protest was announced in case that this request is not adopted when the final version of this act is considered by BiH Parliamentary Assembly.

“I think that we could go out on the streets in protest. If women could have done it in 1908, I do not see any reason why could not we“, said the introductory speaker, and she pointed out that women today enjoy the rights for which their predecessors had fought for, and that they should continue with this fight for the generations to come.

The public debate was organised by Helsinki Citizens' Assembly and United Women Banja Luka with financial support from Swedish organisation Kvinna till Kvinna.

B.M.

Regional Conference “From Local to Global Dialogue with the EU”

21^st -23^rd October 2009, Banja Luka

The round table “From Local to Global Dialogue with the EU” held in Banja Luka from 21^st till 23^rd October this year, led to the agreement on forming Regional Women’s Network, which would bring together women’s organisations from BiH, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Macedonia, as well as organisations from other countries interested in joint initiatives towards the governments and towards the affirmation of culture of reconciliation, non-violence, and equality policies and practices.

It was also agreed that one of the first joint activities of the network would be to send a protest letter to the international officials, initiators of Butmir talks on BiH Constitutional Changes, due to exclusion of women from this negotiating process.

The goal of the round table, which gathered about 30 representatives of women’s NGOs from the region, was to consider previous forms of cooperation between womens’ groups at the local and regional level. It was concluded that coalitions or networks give greater legitimacy to their work and they they, as such, can more efficiently influence government institutions.

At the beginning of the conference working part, participants were greeted by the Deputy Speaker of Republic Srpska National Assembly, Nada Tesanovic, who said that thanks to joint and networked activities of non governmental organisations, many achievements have been made, citing as an example the introduction of “female quota” on the election list. “After the quota introduction, the number of women in the Parliament significantly increased, although it is still not on the satisfactory level”. reminded Tesanovic.

Participants from all countries shared their experiences and examples of networking, that is, examples of their cooperation.

So, executive director of the Safe House Podgorica, Ljiljana Raicevic, stated that her organisation would not have been able to do anything had it not been networked locally with NGOs in Montenegro, but also regionally – with organisations in other countries. She especially highlighted importance of networking with the institutions of government at the local level. “After the signing of Memorandum on Cooperation with different institutions, improvement was immediately felt. We did not allow for the Memorandum to be purely a matter of protocol, but we constantly appealed to the Memorandum signatories and insisted that the memorandum be implemented in practice” said Raicevic.

Representative of NGO Vjestine from Opatija, Sura Dumanic, summed up the history of women’s activism in Croatia, stating that the activities of women’s groups (except for those earlier who are rooted in the feminist initiatives) have two grounds – peace, consisting of associations that opposed the war, and work with refugees and displaced persons, which de facto lead to the emergence of numerous women’s groups in Croatia.

According to Dumanic, some of these groups were later on professionalised, some became “organisations favouring government institutions, because they do the same work as for example Centre for Social Work, and are financed from the state budget”.

She recalled some of the major coalitions of women’s groups in Croatia, such as Women Ad Hoc Coalition, formed prior to elections 1998, which led to the exclusion of HDZ majority from the government and to a greater percentage of elected women, but also to the creation of Croatian Women’s Network. She alerted to the fact that many years long engagment of women’s groups was falling into oblivion as it left “no clear traces in the collective conscious of society and because it was not publicly valorised”.

Talking about experiences from Macedonia, Savka Torodovska, president of NSZM – SOZM, said that women in Macedonia very quickly learned that “they would have greater authority if networked” adding that the National Women’s Council of Republic Macedonia nowadays gathers 105 independent women’s organisations (initially called Alliance of Women’s Organisations for Macedonia, which was later renamed into National Women’s Council, and at first gathered 13 organisations) and that it represented the largest network in the state.

“The evidence of how strong we are is the recent survey where the citizens were asked what non governmental organisations in Macedonia they were aware of. SOZM was mentioned in the first five listed organisations”, stated Todorvska.

According to her, apart from SOZM, that is NSZM, there are several other networks working in Macedonia: Civic Platform of Macedonia (around 40 organisations) Macedonia Without Discrimination (9 organisations) and Macedonian Women’s Lobby, which is also a member of European Women’s Lobby.

“Our experience shows that women’s organisations’ networking and the activities of large coalitions give greater legitimacy to their work and thus allow for much bigger pressure on those who are decision makers” concluded Todorovska.

Aleksandra Nestorov from Autonomous Women’s Centre Belgrade stated that there are several women’s networks working in Serbia, such as Network Women in Black of Serbia, National ASTRA Network, Women’s Network, Poverty, Development and Network Women Against Violence, gathering 31 women’s organisations from 18 Serbian towns, specialised for fighting violence against women.

Berina Meheljic from Cure Foundation Sarajevo presented the BiH Women’s Network “which is every day becoming richer with one more network member”. Within the project “Reviving Women’s Network in BiH”, Cure Foundation prepared a Directory containing information on 99 active women’s groups in BiH. The goal of this project, as Meheljic says, is to strengthen BiH women and feminist movement long term, through creation of communication platform that would provide information on groups engaged in protection of women’s human rights in BiH.

As a part of her expose at the round table, Natalija Petric presented the methods and principles of European Women’s Lobby work, the membership of which is based on national networks.

In the discussion that followed, Mirjana Galo suggested to launch an initiative for forming a regional network. Participants agreed that for the network functioning, it was crucial to have good information exchange, but also to have equal division of responsibilities so to avoid that “one organisation bears everything on its shoulders’, as Hatidza Pecenkovic stated.

Subsequent to this, work groups were formed, suggesting models for regional network that would connect various women’s groups from the region, taking into account specific of these groups and of their needs. The first step towards its revival would be the forming of e-mail list through which the members would exchange information, appeals, project etc., while in the coming period, members are to arrange other details, such as the name of the network, manner of inclusion and exclusion from the network, work principles etc.

The round table also included organisation of promotion of Anthology, collection of pieces, called “Why am I for peace” in the bookstore Litera, while this anthology was presented by the editor Sura Dumanic and one of the authors Darija Zilic.

D.D.

Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka and United Women Banja Luka organized a workshop at Kozara Mountain titled “Strengthening Capacities of Deputies and Representatives of Municipal Parliaments and Employees of Municipal Administrations in Banja Luka, Prijedor, Kozarska Dubica, Gradiška and Novi Grad”. The participants were introduced to the theory and skills of negotiation, public advocacy and media appearance. These skills were practiced on the examples of negotiations with NGOs on the opening of the safe house and funding of the mobile team for the prevention of domestic violence and protection of victims of domestic violence, as well as through negotiations on possible conflict situations in the local community. After these exercises, they conducted a simulated press conference. This training was attended by nineteen participants.

L. Z.

Consequences of Economic Crisis for Women and Children Victims of Domestic Violence

5 June 2009

Public Forum, held in Banja Luka on 5 June, focusing on discussion about impacts of economic crisis on women and children victims of domestic violence, led to the adoption of several conclusions which should assist in removing future potential difficulties in financing Safe Houses on the territory of Republic Srpska. In that sense, female and male Forum participants initiated establishment of the Intervention Fund for supporting women and children victims of violence, and appealed to local communities to foresee in their budgets, pursuant to the law, necessary means for the work of Safe Houses, the amount of which should not be less than 30%, meaning they should not reduce legally foreseen means for this purpose and should not make budget savings at the expense of victims of violence.

Forum participants appealed to the RS Government to regularly meet their legal obligations, according to which the Government is obliged to provide 70% of financial means, needed for the work of Safe Houses.

In her introductory expose, the activist of Udruzene Zene, Natalija Petric, stated that the global economic crisis has been publicly proclaimed only after hitting traditionally male jobs, such as banks, stock market and car industry.

“However, the crisis began much earlier, and its consequences were first felt by women, as the first cost savings were done in the sphere of social contributions, meaning on those financial means dedicated to social services, and the burden of which is mostly sensed by women” said Petric, recalling that gender based violence is a global phenomenon which hits women even before they are born.

“The forms of gender based violence happen in all phases of life of woman’s development cycle, from selective abortion of female foetuses, murder of female new born babies, female circumcision, forcing females into early marriages, rapes, sexual abuses, domestic violence, and murders for the sake of endowmnet or due to honour”, explained Petric, adding that violence against women is not an incident, but a mechanism by means of which women are throughout their entire life held in subordination and “on the position where they belong”.

Talking about problems of Safe Houses’ financing in the RS, Petric said that Udruzene Zene have been trying for several months to get an answer from the RS Government as to what has happened with financial means planned for the Safe Houses’ functioning “but always received oral answers that this was the time of crisis and that some other things had priority”.

“We would always receive oral, never written answers and this is an evidence of lack of responsibility and familiarity of individuals from the authority and shows what is their relation and attitude towards public and non governmental organisations” highlighted Petric, explaining that the Forum’s goal was to identify models and ways for overcoming these and similar situations, which, at one stage, led to the closure of Banja Luka Safe House.

Representative of the Gender Centre, Jelena Milinovic, stressed that there was a certain progress, “having in mind that 12 years ago, domestic violence remained in the sphere of private problems, while nowadays there is an institutional, legal-normative framework regulating this issue”. She added that this legal framework needed to be upgraded and that the Government was obliged to abide by legislation and by all obligations that it assumed.

During the discussion which followed the expose, Miroslav Samardzic from Udruzene zene, said that it was “absurd that the Government after six months provides money that only allows for covering the debts emerging from the previous period and for paying two out of five due salaries to Safe House employees”.

“This is a crying room, because all of us who are familiar with the problem are present here, while those who should be solving the problem are absent” stressed Samardzic.

Commenting on proposal to form the Fund for women and children victims of violence, Aleksandara Petric stated that it should be clearly explained that this future Fund would be temporary, meaning that it was not a permanent solution, while the initiation of this Fund in no way frees the Government from its legally prescribed duties.

There was a lot of discussion as to how financial means collected into the Fund could be used. One of the suggestions was to use financial means from the Fund for ensuring exit strategies for women, victims of violence, while some other proposals talked about using the Fund as a temporary assistance in the situations where Government fails to fulfill its duties.

Lidija Zivanovic, Director of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Banja Luka, gave an idea to organise a separate meeting which would define the manner for collecting financial means for the Fund and the usage of these means.

Gordana Vidovic, President of Citizens’ Association Buducnost from Modrica, pointed out that there should be more efforts towards raising public awareness, “so that citizens could react to such instances”. She explained that the situation in Modrica Safe House was also difficult and that it survived only thanks to foreign donations.

The forum invited high officials of the RS but due to, as they explained, some arrangements made earlier, they were not able to attend this gathering.

After the Forum, and with the same topic, RTRS broadcast the talk show, with the participation of Amela Basic, psychologist and Jelena Milinovic, Head of the Department for Coordination, Education and Cooperation in Government’s Gender Centre.

D.D.

Prijedor 24 February 2009

Gradiska, 20 March 2009 
Novi Grad, 14 April 2009 
Kozarska Dubica, 15 May 2009

Bosnian-Herzegovinian legal framework for reaching gender equality

“To talk about gender equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, still means to talk about improvement of women’s’ position, women’s human rights and ways and means for satisfying these rights”, stated Forum introductory expert, M.Sc. Natalija Petric. She highlighted that the path towards reaching full gender equality, not only in BiH but outside its borders, was still a very long one. She presented the UN statistics reiterating her claims, focusing on women: women still perform 67% of world labor, and only receive 10% of world’s income, they own 1% of world’s assets, out of the total number of illiterate 70% of them are women, women earn 50% less than man for the same workload, among 1.3 billion people who live in the utmost poverty, there are 70% women, they hold between 10 and 20% of directors and management post, they hold 10% of seats in the parliaments, and only 5% of them are state presidents.

She also spoke about gender equality in the European Union as the basic right and common value of member countries. European Road Map highlighted six priority areas of action for the period 2006-1010: equal economic independence of women and men, harmonization of family and professional life; equal representation of both genders in decision making processes; elimination of stereotypes based on gender; rooting out all types of gender based violence; promotion of gender equality in foreign and developmental policy.

Introductory expert believes that the legal framework for gender equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina is satisfactory, institutional mechanisms have been established but regardless of this, the real life situations is still dissatisfying, “Women’s human rights continue to be violated, protection is insufficient, while financial means for providing assistance and aid to the victims is symbolic. In other words, Bosnia and Herzegovina only fulfilled the first level of internationally assumed obligations, those that relate to the law adoption and establishment of national mechanisms. Although the laws are necessary as the first step towards gender equality, they surely aren’t sufficient. Apart from the law, we need to work on raising public awareness - disseminating information, educating public about gender equality, appealing to their mentality, but also taking protection measures through establishment and/or provision of support to those services that may assist victims of discrimination which is based on gender/sex, and sexual harassment, both in public and private sphere”.

During Forum discussion in all four local communities, both female and male participants shared almost identical view of the problem of gender inequality in BiH.

They concluded that in the last 10 years a serious step forward was made in the area of legislation and respect for women’s human rights, but it was surely not sufficient, adding that the efficiency of legal solutions in the sense of practical protection of victims of violence based on gender should be re-examined and that these legal solutions would need to be improved.

They were especially interested in the issues of gender equality in public life, problems of domestic violence against women and legislation that deals with these two aspects.

They highlighted that the law should regulate equal representation of women and men in the management structures of political parties and public enterprises and should raise the “female” quota from 30% to 40%.

They also stressed the importance of women’s involvement in the politics, and also significance of greater participation in the executive authority.

They appealed to the members of newly formed Commissions for Gender Equality on the local level to carefully monitor the process of selection and appointment inside municipal administration and to point at the violation of the Law on Gender Equality, regulating equal representation in the local management.

Participants welcomed the announced changes to the Law on Gender Equality in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the sense of improving position of women in these two areas.

After the Forum in all four towns, the workshops were held at which participants worked on planning gender sensitive politics on municipal level. Workshops were moderated by Amela Basic Tomic, psychologist and Aleksandar Zivanovic, journalist.

Each workshop started with the presentation of conclusions from workshops held throughout the year 2008 in municipal assemblies, and which were related to gender sensitive municipal policies and gender stereotypes, and to examining the extent to which these measures have been implemented in practice. It was agreed that the recommendations given in the year 2008 were partially carried out. The conclusion was that the cause for this partial implementation was the fact that it was the election year and that local executive and legislative authorities faced staff changes. This resulted in the fact that none of four municipalities has foreseen budget means for the year 2009 for the work of gender commissions, or for financing safe houses for women victims of domestic violence. It has been observed at the workshops that municipal budgets were not gender sensitive, that there was no gender balance in the names of streets and squares, that men and women sports did not receive equal amount of money, and that newly formed commissions for gender equality did not have a plan as to what they should do and how they should work. Some of the participants suggested that the Statute should allow commissions to engage persons from the non governmental sector, which according to them, would make commissions more efficient. Also, within these workshops, participants set out priorities on which they would like to furhter focus and developed mini plans for the realisation of these priorities, as well as the time table.

L.Ž.

Women, Poverty and World Economic Crisis

10 April 2009

“At times of great economic crises, those who are struck the first are always women. They are the first to be fired from work”, cautioned Svetlana Cenic, introductory expert at the Public Forum held in Banja Luka, entitled “Women, Poverty and World Economic Crisis”.

Expressing data on position of women in the world nowadays, she mentioned that women perform 2/3 of working hours, while receive only 1/10 of world income, and that out of 900 million illiterate persons, there are twice more women than man.

One of the problems which makes women much more vulnerable at the times of great economic crises, according to Ms Cenic, is their insufficient mobility. “Woman who becomes jobless in Banja Luka and who receives a job offer in Mostar, will have difficulties in accepting such an offer, due to lack of ambitions, because of family or even due to potential risks which the assumption of the job in some different environment brings. Men have much less dilemmas here, as the burden of the family always lies on women” highlighted Cenic

While comparing the old and the new approach to economy, Cenic stated that the “old” perception of economy implied long-term employment, seldom job change, and great industrial giants, such as Cajavec or Incel, in which employees spent their entire employment period.

Contrary to this perception, the new approach means sequential jobs, jobs oriented towards knowledge, and flexible borders between home and work, but also flexible working hours, which, as she explained, suits women more.

Forum participants, in the discussion which followed this expose, expressed their opinion that “women calculate too much, trying to please either their children or husbands” “they are seldom ready to publicly express their stands” “they are too much afraid of risk” and that they are burdened with prejudice and the need to be “good mothers, role model wives and workers”.

Commenting on some of the statements given in the discussion, Cenic said that women need to gain back their self-esteem, and that “one can be publicly heard without membership in a political party”. She highlighted the advantage of modern technologies in communicating or establishing networks inside the BiH, but also throughout the world. She suggested, the forming of the help group through which the information on job availability, scholarships etc. would be exchanged. “We should no longer wait for others to use all the advantages”.

It was concluded in the end that the laws should be more flexible and that it was necessary to create environment for part time jobs, which would suit female entrepreneurship.

After the forum, Radio Television of Republic Srpska broadcast the programme on 11 April, sharing the topic of the Forum “Women, Poverty and World Economic Crisis”. The program hosted Professor Doctor Svetlana Cenic, who was introductory expert at the Public Forum, Besima Boric, deputy of Social Democratic Party of BiH in the Canton Sarajevo Municipal Assembly, and Project Coordinator Nada Golubovic. The guests in the programme informed the viewers about the consequences of the global economic crisis which is particularly unfavourable for women and presented conclusions from the public forum.

Women’s Labour Rights

6 March 2009

On the occasion of 8^th March, a press conference was held focusing on “Women’s Labour Rights” which are being violated on daily bases in the years of global economic crisis.

Labour rights, that is poor working conditions and low wages, caused public demonstrations organised by women employed in the clothing and textile industry in New York on 8^th March 1857, stated Aleksandar Radeta Stegic, activist of Non Governmental Organisation Udruzene Zene Banja Luka.

This was also the opportunity to present public with the results of the project “Through Women’s Labour Rights”, which Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly implemented in the year 2008. Tanja Slijepac, coordinator of this project, stressed that during the project implementation it has been noticed that women are jeopardised in the working sphere, especially pregnant women, who lose their jobs in most of cases when the employer finds about their condition.