▼ if you are interested in learning about the work of non-governmental organizations that promote human rights,

apply for training at the Clinic for the Prevention of Discrimination organized by the Center for Women’s Studies.
▲
Participation requirements:
completed secondary education, a sent application and a letter of motivation, and willingness to participate in the entire program from April to July 2012.

The application should contain:
name, surname, occupation and contact info (address, e-mail and telephone number)
the applicant’s short CV
a letter of motivation (1-2 standard pages) with an explanation why you want to participate in the training
▲
Applications are to be sent by email: ad-acte@zenstud.hr by April 9, 2012.

Answers to any of your questions may also be obtained by telephone: +385 (1) 48 72 406. The contact person is Jasminka Pešut. For more about the AD ACTE project, see: http://zenajevise.net/.

MORE ABOUT THE CLINIC:

Training/educational program: Clinic for the Prevention of Discrimination

Head: Snježana Vasiljević
Executers: Mario Vinković and Ivana Radačić

Provides an insight into various research issues and perspectives in the field of equality, diversity and anti-discrimination. At the center of the module are different concepts of discrimination and anti-discriminatory public policy measures. The consideration of discrimination will also include multiple discrimination and a special focus will be put on considering sex-, racially-, ethnicity- and religion-based forms of discrimination. The module will pay special attention to feminist approaches to discrimination and to the issue of human rights in the international legal order, as well as insights into non-institutional practices in the protection from discrimination, especially sex or ethnicity based.

The AIM of the training/educational program
To raise the participants’ awareness about the prevalence and harms of discrimination, to introduce them to the laws that are in force and the possibilities of existing legal protection as well as direct protection from discrimination in the framework of civil society organizations. Furthermore, the aim is to encourage critical thinking and linking theoretical issues with personal experiential knowledge, and to provide an insight into the causes of prejudice, stereotypes and discrimination, but also into the different social policy measures in that field (on a global, European and national level), and into the consequences of discrimination on the individual and the community. The participants will acquire knowledge on the causes of discrimination and will be given a chance to connect what they have learned with the basic experiential insights into anti-discriminatory mechanisms and practices.

Thematic sections:
1. Discrimination – the concept, meaning and forms 2. The theories and concepts of equality 3. Feminist approaches to discrimination 4. Women’s rights in the international legal order 5. Discrimination in the labour market 6. Social policies and the labour market (a gender and racial discrimination overview) 7. The concept and meaning of multiple discrimination

Work mode:
The program consists of two interconnected parts, the theoretical and the practical. The theoretical part lasts seven weeks and includes 7 double sessions and 2 workshops. The practical part consists of 20 hours of volunteer work in one of the non-governmental organizations that deal with the protection from discrimination.

Dynamics and intensity
Lectures will be held once a week, Mondays, starting from April 16 2012. The program is free.

The advocacy campaign of the Center for Women’s Studies Ad Acta – Stop Gender Discrimination on Electoral Lists with the slogan “There are More Women” is part of the two-year project AD ACTE – Anti-Discrimination ACtions Towards Equality of women and men, which is implemented in partnership with the CEE Network for Gender Issues and in collaboration with the Serbian National Council, with financial support from the European Union and the Office for Gender Equality.

The press conference will be moderated by Jasminka Pešut from the Center for Women’s Studies, and the campaigns will be presented by:

Zorica Siročić, Center for Women’s Studies,
Tajana Broz, CESI,
Mirjana Kučer, Domine.

11:00 – 11:30 Participant registration

11:30 – 11:45 Rada Borić, executive director of the Center for Women’s Studies, Zagreb
The organizers’ introduction

11:45 – 12:05 Astrid Thors, Swedish People’s Party, Finland
Finnish women, first in the world to be MPs, still need a women’s parliamentary network

12:05 – 12:25 Sonja Lokar, CEE Network for Gender Issues, Slovenia
You cannot bring back a missed opportunity!

12:25 – 12:45 Josip Šipić, Economic Institute, Zagreb
Right-wing parties’ politics of motherhood

12:45 – 13:15 Discussion

13:15 – 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 – 14:20 Ana Lovrin, president of the Justice Committee of the Croatian Parliament
Gender policies of HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) with a special focus on the party’s program in the forthcoming general elections

14:20 – 14:40 Gordana Sobol, president of the Gender Equality Committee of the Croatian Parliament
The Social Democratic Party’s approach to gender policies

14:40 –15:00 Tajana Broz, CESI – Center for Education, Counseling and Research, Zagreb
Gender (un)awareness of party programs

15:00 – 16:00 Conclusion and discussion

Moderator: Marjeta Šinko, Center for Women’s Studies / Faculty of Political Science, Zagreb

The roundtable is part of the project AD ACTE – Anti-Discrimination ACtions Towards Equality of women and men, implemented in partnership with the CEE Network for Gender Issues from Slovenia and in collaboration with the Serbian National Council.

After Helena Štimac Radin’s introductory words, Paolo Berizzi presented the Strategy and as the greatest challenge named labor market equality, that is, creating opportunities where the highest positions will be open to women. Realizing equal pay for equal work still remains a major task, and this disparity in the EU amounts to 18%. He also commended Croatia’s efforts and advancement in the field of gender equality. Jadranka Kosor emphasized that despite a good legislative framework, we are still far from the 40% representation of women in Parliament, and that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) will certainly comply with the Gender Equality Act when creating electoral lists. She also commented on the protection of particularly sensitive groups of women, such as victims of violence, national minority members, especially Roma girls and women, and women with disabilities.

The National Policy Draft was presented by the head of the Office for Gender Equality of the Republic of Croatia Helena Štimac Radin, who specified the reduction in the number of measures from 144 to 91 as the principal feature of the new national policy as opposed to the previous one, which is an opportunity for a more concrete measure implementation. The novelty in relation to the old National Policy is the introduction of the chapter called the Promotion of International Cooperation, which was introduced due to the fulfillment of obligations towards the EU, but also due to establishing cooperation with international institutions and organizations.

The National Policy for the Promotion of Gender Equality for the period 2011 – 2015 consists of seven fields of action which are required to include a gender perspective in their programs.

The main objections to the Proposal are related to the short deadline for the public discussion, to not defining the indicators by which the (in)efficiency of the previously proposed measures could be determined, not publishing the Report on the effect of the previous National Policy based on which more effective measures could be adopted, and the non-existence of a systematic funding plan for the proposed measures.

For example, Rada Borić pointed out a number of shortcomings of the Proposal, including the ambiguous language in which it is written and which points to the absence of political will for implementing the proposed measures, an inflation of measures related to statistical monitoring, the excessive deadline for the implementation of the proposed measures, the non-existence of a significant number of measures for monitoring (or indicators). As a suggestion for the National Policy supplement on a general level she stated the necessity for more specific measures, for example, the introduction of pensions for rural women or scholarships for traditionally male occupations. She also expressed dissatisfaction with the combining of measures that concern the members of national minorities and women with disabilities, since such measures do not take into account women’s specific experiences, and the omission of the chapter Woman and Peace Building.

Tatjana Broz from CESI pointed out the need to define the indicators by which the results of the implementation of previous national policies could be determined with certainty as well as the need of making new ones. She also noted a short deadline stipulated by the Office for Making Complaints and Suggestions about the National Policy Draft.

Gordana Sobol from SDP talked about the uncertainty of survival of a large number of autonomous women’s houses and about the non-existence of a separate chapter on women’s health. She also brought up the issue of unavailability of the report on the implementation of the previous National Policy (2008 – 2010), to which she received the response that the report is going to be published as soon as the Government accepts it. According to Sobol, seeing as it is the Parliament or the Gender Equality Committee that adopts the National Policy, they are the ones who should be discussing the report on its implementation.

As the short time limit of the discussion was mentioned on several occasions, the Head of the Office for Gender Equality decided to extend the debate on the Draft and to allow for written comments and suggestions to be delivered by Wednesday, May 11, which is five days longer than the original deadline.

Creating a public space for the expression of women’s needs and interests, and all with the aim of including a gender perspective and the real needs of women into party pre-election programs and public policies, is the primary goal of the project What do women want? Women’s voices in the parliamentary elections in 2011. Therefore CESI and its partner organizations together formed Women’s Platform 2011. “Women’s Platform 2011 was created as a result of conversations with women all over Croatia, in 10 counties and 10 cities, and we also highly valued women belonging to minority groups – such as national minority members and women with disabilities, whose position in society is especially difficult,” said Mirjana Kučer from Domine. Even though many of the demands outlined in the Platform are already stated in various other strategies and acts, women in Croatia are warning that these strategies are not being implemented or that they cannot exercise their rights. “We ask that women’s rights be more than a dead letter on a piece of paper and that the future Parliament and Government actually realize what they vote on,” stressed Tatjana Broz from CESI and stated that meetings have been requested with heads of all parties represented in Parliament in order to present them with women’s demands in their entirety.

The proportion of women in parliament has stagnated at 20% in the last 10 years, while at the same time research shows that both men and women think there ought to be more women in politics so as to improve its quality. “Guided by the results of our research, we have concluded that the problem does not lie in the citizens, but elsewhere. To be precise, in the political party heads who create electoral lists,” stated Zorica Siročić from the Center for Women’s Studies while presenting the Center’s campaign which is being carried out in the framework of the project Ad Acte – Stop Gender Discrimination on Electoral Lists. Thus the Center for Women’s Studies decided to make posters and place them in the vicinity of political parties’ headquarters, and to repeatedly send them memos to remind them about their legal, but also democratic, obligation to nominate 40% of women. Although sanctions for disregarding quotas will not yet be applied in these elections, all participants agreed that it’s “sad that we need penalties to force parties to fulfill the quota of 40% of women on electoral lists.”

For more about the event, see ured-ravnopravnost.hr.

The Center invites all interested citizens, and especially reporters, representatives of academia, institutions, civil society and other important social actors to participate and contribute to this roundtable.

Roundtable participants:

Astrid Thors – MP for Swedish People’s Party of Finland
Sonja Lokar – CEE Network for Gender Issues, Slovenia
Josip Šipić – Economic Institute, Zagreb
Ana Lovrin – MP for HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union)
Gordana Sobol – president of the Gender Equality Committee of the Croatian Parliament
Tajana Broz – CESI – Center for Education, Counseling and Research, Zagreb

Moderator: Marjeta Šinko – Center for Women’s Studies / Faculty of Political Science

The event is open to all, and if you are interested in coming, please confirm your attendance at ad-acte@zenstud.hr or by telephone 01/234 5678.

The roundtable was part of the project AD ACTE – Anti-Discrimination ACtions Towards Equality of women and men, which the Center is implementing in partnership with the CEE Network for Gender Issues from Slovenia and in collaboration with the Serbian National Council, with financial support from the EU.

After an introduction from Rada Borić, executive director of the Center for Women’s Studies, the main topic of discussion was the representation of gender policies in pre-election programs, along with gender policy experiences of the EU member countries. Sonja Lokar, president of the CEE Network, shared her Slovenian experiences, and Astrid Thors, Swedish People’s Party representative in the Finnish Parliament, and also a longtime European Parliament representative and until recently the Minister of Migration and European Affairs in the Finnish government, spoke of the necessity of transpartisan cooperation between women politicians. Josip Šipić from the Economic Institute in Zagreb spoke about the right-wing parties’ politics of motherhood, and Tatjana Broz from the NGO CESI offered a gender analysis of the pre-election political parties’ programs. Political party representatives Ana Lovrin, president of the Justice Committee of the Croatian Parliament’s and Gordana Sobol, president of the Gender Equality Committee of the Croatian Parliament, spoke about the representation of gender policies in their parties’ programs. The event was moderated by Marjeta Šinko, an assistant at the Faculty of Political Science and a member of the Center for Women’s Studies.