CEDEM ORGANIZED FINAL CONFERENCE AND PANEL DISCUSSION OF THE PROJECT “WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT INITIATIVE: EDUCATION FOR GENDER EQUALITY”
CEDEM held final conference and panel discussion on 11/18/2019. , which is also the final activity of the project “Women’s Empowerment Initiative: Education for Gender Equality“, implemented by CEDEM in partnership with the Montenegrin Women’s Lobby (CCL), with the support of the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights.
The aim of the project is to contribute to greater respect for women’s rights and raise awareness among the lay and professional public about the importance of gender equality, improve the position and representation of women in high positions in the security sector, encourage the development of a more coherent and effective gender policy, through raising awareness of the issue of gender inequality and raising public awareness of all forms of violence against women in order to reduce violence.
The conference brought together about 30 representatives of line ministries, local self-government, justice, non-governmental organizations and the media, where representatives of the Basic Court, the Ombudsman, the National Security Agency, the Police Directorate, the Center for Social Work.
The conference concluded that progress has been made with regard to gender mainstreaming in the security sector and an increase in the representation of women in almost all security sector institutions, but on the other hand, this is not the case in all positions and across all lines of work. Women continue to face challenges in accessing command and leadership positions, and in operational and police affairs, primarily due to difficulties in reconciling professional and private life.
When it comes to combating gender-based violence, it is concluded that while there is a system for combating violence and that every institution and all its staff are working hard to do their job properly and to the end, it seems that much remains to be done and on a multisectoral approach, as well as raising awareness of the whole society in general.
