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Report Highlights Gender Equality Problems in Eastern Europe

Despite laws guaranteeing equal opportunities for women, in line with EU standards and norms, implementation in nine Central and Eastern European countries - including six current EU members as well as candidate countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey - remains sluggish, a new report finds. Women in the region continue to face widespread and increasing disparities in employment opportunities, wages and political representation.

Nine Central and East European countries still have a long way to go before gender equality becomes a fact there, a new Open Society Institute (OSI) report says.

The document, entitled Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, drawn up together with the Bucharest-based Centre for Partnership and Equality, was presented to the European Parliament's (EP) Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality on 4 May. It studies the gender situation in six new EU member states - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia - and in EU candidate countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

The report's findings and recommendations are based on monitoring conducted by national experts and local NGO representatives in the countries surveyed, focusing largely on developments from 2002-2004.

Laws guaranteeing equal opportunities for women, in line with European standards and norms, have been adopted throughout the region, the researchers said. However, "the level of implementation of legislative measures remains very low" and women in all nine countries continue to face disparities in terms of jobs, wages and political representation. What is more, those disparities appear to be increasing throughout the region.

"It's indeed among the general findings of the report that, unfortunately, the laws - namely the legal framework related to gender equality - are in place, but on the other hand it is quite clear that the laws function on paper but unfortunately there is quite [a lot of] time remaining in order to transpose these laws into the daily lives of the citizens," Roxana Tesiu, executive president of the Centre for Partnership and Equality, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

In the majority of the countries examined, women's employment rates have slightly improved since 2002, the OSI report said. But "the gender pay gap remains very high, with no indication of policies in place to address this".

Among the nine countries, the gender pay gap is the biggest in Bulgaria, Estonia and Slovakia, where women are paid 25 per cent to 30 per cent less than men - almost twice the current EU average of 15 per cent. Bulgarian women receive salaries that are 28 per cent lower than those of men.

In Turkey, the situation is slightly better, with women receiving 22.5 per cent less than men, according to a 2002 household survey. In the same year, Romanian women were paid about 17 per cent less than men.

According to the OSI report, women in the nine countries remain significantly under-represented in decision-making positions, particularly in political decision-making and parliamentary representation.

In Turkey, only one of the 22 cabinet ministers and only 4.4 per cent of all lawmakers in the 550-seat parliament are women. Following the 2004 parliamentary elections in Romania, women filled about 10 per cent of the 469 country's bicameral parliament seats and three of the 23 ministerial posts. The situation in Bulgaria is slightly better, with women accounting for 27.1 per cent of MPs in the 240-seat legislature. Five of all 20 ministers in the Bulgarian government are women.

Based on their findings, the researchers have drawn up recommendations to both the national governments and EU institutions.

One of the key recommendations is that governments establish mechanisms for the regular monitoring of how equal pay principles are practiced in both the public and private sectors and making these monitoring results public. The researchers also urge the governments of Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland to adopt official gender equality strategies. They also call on all governments to collect gender disaggregated statistical data, without which gender equality policies can hardly be successful.

According to the report, Bulgaria is the only one among the nine countries surveyed that still lacks a specific national body on gender equality at the governmental or parliamentary level and should find the necessary funding to guarantee the establishment of the required institutions. Furthermore, it should appoint a gender expert within each ministry and municipality.

The measures Romania still needs to take include ensuring that the activities of the parliamentary structures dealing with gender equality are less decorative and more productive and that the National Agency for Equal Opportunities gets the financial and human resources it needs to carry out its mandate. The experts also see an urgent need for the development of "integrated and consistent state policies on various aspects of gender equality".

Turkey needs to develop concrete short-, medium- and long-term plans ensuring gender equality and to improve women's access to the labour market. It should also set aside the needed financial resources for the implementation of gender equality standards and establish mechanisms preventing the misuse of those resources. The other measures the country must take, according to the report, include ensuring NGOs' access to all resources, including information and improving the access of women and girls to education.

According to Zita Gurmai, the vice-chairperson of the EP Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, the OSI report highlighted the need for "efforts to get legally binding EU instruments addressing gender equality in decision-making" and to make sure that the Union's commitment to gender mainstreaming in all policies is translated into reality.

By Svetla Dimitrova for Southeast European Times in Sofia

16 May 2005