Gender Network - Gender Network - Report Seminar Macedonia May 2008
REPORT JOINT SD PARTIES’ CHILD CARE CAMPAIGN
SUBREGIONAL SEMINAR IN SKOPJE, MACEDONIA
MAY 17-19, 2008
BACKGROUND
CEE Network for Gender Issues, constantly supported by the SIDA, Olof Palme Centre and S-Kvinnor, has been systematically working on empowering of women party members and on gender mainstreaming in SD parties of more than 20 transition countries from 1998.
Under tremendous pressure of conservative backlash and neo – liberal pattern of transition, most of the SD parties in transition countries still have a major problem to develop and implement specific gender equality policies and to give them the priority in their party work, regardless of the fact if they are in power or in opposition. Even more, many of the already developed services and benefits enabling men and women to establish good work-life balance, have been destroyed (for example early age child care facilities in Hungary, Check Republic, in Slovakia), made horribly expensive, did not make any progress with regard quality, or even lost the level of the quantity and quality of the services achieved in the communist-socialist past (This is the case in practically all war and high poverty and unemployment hit transition countries).
In the meantime, in 2002, EC set Barcelona targets for child care and renewed its commitment in the Roadmap for gender Equality and in the Gender Pact. Never the less, most of the EU member states have still a long way to go, and in 2007, PES W led their famous Put the Children First campaign.
After 2004 many former transition countries entered EU (12), got the status of the candidate country (Croatia, Macedonia, Turkey) or opened the first stages of the “rapprochement” to the EU. This is the prime time to help SD parties in these countries, to learn more about EU and PES parties’ specific gender equality approaches, priorities and policies and to use the period of negotiations for the EU membership also for the improvement of the status of women in their countries. This is why CEE Network for Gender Issues decided to organize this “Joint SD Child Care Campaign”.
In the process of empowering women members of SD parties, these parties mostly succeeded to establish their (still very weak) women’s organizations, set the quotas in their party statutes (mostly they do not really respect them), include gender equality in their set of programmatic values. The progress towards equal power balance of men and women in SD parties is very slow and uneven, with many set backs. This is why CEE Network for Gender Issues includes a discussion on the state of art and specific aspects of this issue in all its activities on the spot. This time, CEE network Board decided to focus the attention of the participants to the SIW and its forthcoming Congress in Athens, as well as on the PES W work on the PES Electoral Manifesto and CEE Network idea of the joint cross-party parity coalition and campaign for the European elections in 2009.
THE FRAMEWORK OF THE CHILD CARE CAMPAIGN
This framework consists of the following steps:
• Collection of the information on the state of art of the child care in included countries and of SD parties’ attitudes concerning this issue. Special questionnaire was sent to all invited parties (See the attachment No. 2)
• Preparation of the special materials for the seminars
• 2 sub regional seminars in order to insure exchange of best practices and to agree upon the campaigns to be led by SD parties in their countries. The seminar in Skopje was the first of its kind.
• Follow up meeting of the organizers of the best national child care campaigns, in order to learn about the best practices developed in included countries.
• Dissemination (by electronic means) of the materials and outcomes of this project, using web page of the CEE Network for Gender Issues, and the web pages of all participating parties.
PREPARATORY STEPS:
AGENDA OF THE SKOPJE SEMINAR:
Saturday, May, 17. 2008 Arrival of the participants, dinner
Sunday, May, 18. 2008 08 – 09 Breakfast
09 – 10 Presentation of the project, participants
10 – 11 Exchange of experiences on SD child care policies in EU and in non EU countries – presentation Sonja Lokar
11 – 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 – 13 Exchange of experiences on SD child care policies in EU and in non EU countries – country presentations
13 – 15 Lunch break
15 – 17 Work in two groups
Plan of SD child care campaign when my party is in government or in opposition
17.00-17:30 Coffee break
17:30 – 18 Presentations of the outcomes of the group work
18.00 – 19 Agreements on the preparations of national campaigns
Monday, May, 19 2008 08 – 09 Breakfast
09 – 10 Preparations for the SIW Congress and elections – Mirjana Ferić Vac, vice president of the SIW
10 – 11 Preparations for the European parliamentary elections – Parity Coalition and Parity campaign
11 – 12 Conclusions
12 – 13 Lunch and departure of participants
CHOOSING THE PARTNER AND THE TIMING FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SEMINAR:
CEE Network for Gender Issues was always open to the progressive civil society women groups and to the women in TU. Having no professional staff, we use women party organizations or NGO-s close to the left, to implement our sub-regional seminars. For this sub –regional seminar we have chosen Macedonia, for two reasons:
• To support SDSM in their difficult strife to win early elections, scheduled for 1st of June 1008,
• To help to survive the UWOM (the oldest, the biggest, the best independent progressive women’s NGO network in Macedonia). This network which was crucial for impressive progress of the modern women’s movement in Macedonia, is now, under the right wing government, in big trouble. It has not a penny of support from the government any more, as well as no support from the former donors who started to leave Macedonia for different reasons from 2006. This is why we have chosen UWOM to be our implementing partner.
INVITEES AND FINAL PARTICIPANTS:
The invitations and the questioners were sent two weeks before the seminar to the leaderships and/or concrete women activists of the following parties:
Turkey: SDP of Turkey, Fatma Cigdem Aydin; KADER Selma Acuner:
Moldova: Social Democratic Party of Moldova: Olga Ooncea; Loretta Handrabura: Club 50/50; Ecaterina Mardarovici,
Romania: Social Democratic Party, PSD: Rovana Plumb:
Bulgaria: Bulgarian Social Democrats, PBSD:. Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP: Katja Nikolova, Deniza Slateva
Albania: Social Democratic Party, PSD: Socialist Party of Albania, SPA
Macedonia: Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, SDSM: Cvetanka Ivanova
Kosovo: SDPK: Kaqusha Jashari:
Serbia: Social Democratic Party of Serbia: Nataša Milojević: Democratic Party, DS: Gordana Čomić:
Montenegro: Social Democratic Party of Montenegro, SDPM: Mirela Radić – Ljubisavljević:
Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro, DPS: Nada Drobnjak:
BiH: Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, SDP BiH: Besima Borić
ISD in Republika Srpska, Zoran Ruzicic
Croatia: Social Democratic Party, SDP: Mirjana Ferić Vac: Karolina Leaković:
Slovenia: Social Democrats, SD; Sonja Lokar:
It came out that several parties were not able to send not even one representative for different reasons:
• Electoral campaigns were in full swing in Romania (local), and in Serbia (general),
• Our Turkish colleagues were engaged already elsewhere
• Bulgarian colleagues could not come for unclear reasons (we haven’t receive any response from Bulgaria why they won’t be able to participate at the seminar)
• BiH SDP celebrated 10 years of their WF at the same dates.
• The ISD from BiH lost the invitation and in the last moment could not organize a qualified participant to come, so they gave up,
• Moldova could not arrange for the visas so quickly.
• SDP of Albania did not answer to our calls and faxes
This is how we ended up with the participants from 6 countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro Kosovo, Macedonia, and Albania. As the early election’s campaign was also in full swing in Macedonia, we could not get the strongest women from the SDSM to the seminar, as they were all busy with their personal campaigns in different areas, bat the party insured the presence of several local women party leaders.
QUESTIONER AND THE ANSWERS FROM THE SD PARTIES
It became clear that our questioner was too demanding for most of the parties. Never the less we got some answers from the following parties:
• Romanian SDP sent their proposal for the change of the law on childcare
• SDP Croatia send us a detailed Zagreb Strategies for Kids
• DPS of Montenegro sent us a general overview on legal framework and implementation of the children welfare
• SP of Albania sent short answers to the questioner
All papers from the participants are attached in the folder as an attachment No. 3
Only the papers from Croatian SDP and their power point reached the professional quality suitable for electronic dissemination as a model of the bests SD practice in the SEE region.
MATERIALS PREPARED AND DISSEMINATED AT THE SEMINAR
Sonja Lokar: Child Care in EU- Challenges for SD Child Care Policies in SEE – power point presentation
Mirjana Ferić Vac, Melita Mulić, Vesna Tokić: Zagreb Strategies for kids
Croatia SDP, Power point presentation
PES booklet: Put the Children First in English, in French and German (50 copies each) distributed to all participants
CEE Network for Gender Issues publications for 2007: “Women in political decision making” – 50 copies in English distributed to all participants
THE SEMINAR:
DAY ONE: CHILD CARE CAMPAIGN
EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCES
Short reports on the state of art of childcare from all present countries showed the following:
• SEE countries share all characteristics of the EU demographic change - ageing population, very low birth rates- with the exemption of Kosova, which has young population and a rather high (but also falling) birth rate. Additional problem is growing emigration of young women and mothers, which makes the demographic situation even more difficult and creates a new category of families – families on distance, with children left to the care of their grand parents and other relatives.
• Not one of the represented SEE countries has reached Barcelona targets – Slovenia and Croatia are the closest (26% of children o-3 years and 77% of children from 3 to school age are included in the child care in Slovenia, for example). All others are lacking far behind, and in addition there is a big difference in the access and quality of the child care in the big cities and in the rural areas between the rich regions and in the poor ones. Child care facilities working time and working time of the parents are in many cases badly tuned.
• Parents nowhere pay the full economic price of organized child care, but in some countries (Slovenia), the fee for a child is too high for the parents of middle class with very transparent income. Where this is the case, the parents do not mary or they arrange a fictive divorce to get much lower price for single parent family.
• Most of the countries have problems with high level of women’s unemployment – the worst are Kosovo and Macedonia. (Macedonia has 44% unemployment rate in which women account for 2/3 of all unemployed). These women can not afford to pay for the child care, and there is a presumption that they should take all the care of their children.
• Conservative governments are developing the models of poorly rewarded ”professional” motherhood with long but badly remunerated maternity leave, free of charge childcare has been given for the second child if the family has two children in child care at the same time (Slovenia), special benefits for mothers for the third and every next child (pension after the fourth child( (electoral promise of the VMRO in Macedonia). Pro-life campaign is going on in Macedonia- all Skopje is plastered with anonymous pro-life posters.
• The child care systems are still mostly public. Financing is mostly shared between central state, local communities, regions and parents. Private non profit initiatives (Montenegro – in the form of the NGO-s) and the churches have entered the field everywhere. Churches led facilities and programs enjoy different level of state subsidies, private facilities none. There is no state set universal standard and no control over the private initiative led child care facilities.
• Children with special needs and children from very poor families or families with violent parent(s) are legally protected. City of Zagreb in Croatia has really good programs for their integration, in other cases the process of integration has started but without sufficient financial and expert support. In Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosova, these children are still institutionalized and separated from the others. Albania reported on the problem of bad care for children in orphanages, street children (especially Roma) and child work. In the poorest parts of the region, the state support to the children in biggest need (Roma) heavily depends on external donors (UNICEF).
• SD parties which have reported on special legal and policy initiatives and good practices in the field of child care were Slovenia (father’s leave, improved state financial support to the families with children, higher standards of quality of childcare in the local communities with SD governance), Croatia(Zagreb strategy for kids), Montenegro (better care for the children, victims of domestic violence) and Albania (initiative to modernize the doctrine and to improve the care in orphanages). Never the less, up till now child care issue hasn’t been a priority issue of any of SD parties in the CEE region.
OUTCOME OF TWO WORKING GROUPS: DRAFT OF THE PLAN FOR THE NATION WIDE SD CHILD CARE CAMPAIGN
On the bases of the work of the two groups, the following plan for the national SD child care campaign was drafted:
1. Women’s party organization starts a professional preparation of the party policy on child care:
• Analysis of the needs in rural and urban areas
• Analysis of the legal framework
• Analysis of the institutional framework
• Analysis of the existing standards for facilities, size of groups, professional staff, diet, working time, curricula
• Care for children with special needs (do not ignore the talented ones); open discussion of the issue of their integration
• Analysis of the human resources
• Analysis of the financial resources
• Comparison of the private, churches led and public facilities and of the cases of private-public partnership
These analyses and setting up of the priorities and measurable targets should be done in open, public discussion with the following groups:
• Experts and practitioners working in the filed of demography and child care
• Parents and grand parents
• Big private employers and their workers’ TU
• Small private employers and their workers’ TU
• State as the biggest employer in the country (public servants) and their workers’ TU
• Staff of the child care facilities
• Local community and city Councils and mayors
• All stakeholders working with the children with special needs
• NGO-s dealing with children rights and needs
On the bases of all these analysis, women’s organization of the party should prepare a proposal of the improvement of the child care policy in the country and a proposal, how the party will implement it.
2. Internal party campaign for the new child care policy of the party
• Agreement with the party executive leadership on the national level to start this discussion in the party, with a clear goal to make it one of the party political priorities and electoral offers both in local and national elections
• Presentation of the new party policy to the members of the party who are party councilors, mayors, MP-s and ministers
• Big party issue conference on the renewal of the child care policy – offer to the voters, slogan of the campaign.
3. Public campaign for the renewal of the child care in the country
Party is in power Party is in opposition
What has been done and what we still need to do to fulfill our electoral promises on child care Identify the child care philosophy of the governance, illustrate the defects of the existing child care system and faults of the existing government with expert arguments and figures.
Activate all respective institutions of the system Explain your alternative proposals with professional arguments and propose initiatives or table amendments in local and city councils and in the national parliament.
Prepare and propose needed legal or administrative improvements Implement your own proposal in all local communities where your party is in power.
Capacity building of the existing professionals so that all of them catch up with the EU standards and best practices in their respective fields of work Bring together as many partners you can get – political parties, NGO-s, parents, grand parents, TU, employers, child care staff, try to build a national public consensus on the issues, from a New Child Care issue coalition and mount the pressure on local, city and national decision makers.
Improve the use of existing professional cadres and insure the growth of material and human resources needed in the field Organize public events to promote your criticism and your alternative proposals for the new child care policies, so interesting and original, that the media could not ignore you.
Try to get the support from as many partners you can get – coalition and even opposition political parties, TU, NGO-s, parents associations, NGO-s – consensus building Make sure, that the voters will get the message: we have realistic good solutions for the improvement of the child care and we need your ACTIVE support to be able to implement them
CONCLUSIONS:
• PES W campaign: Put the Children first and the best practices of SD in EU member states will be the referential framework for the preparation of our realistic and our countries adjusted new child care policies.
• CEE Network will send the minutes of the seminar, all papers presented at the seminar and all answers to the questioner to all invitees of this seminar.
• We will also send the list of participants and their coordinates to all invitees.
FOLLOW UP AGREEMENTS
• Representatives from all parties which took part at this seminar will try to prepare their national NEW CHILD CARE campaigns and will inform CEE Network of the outcomes till the end of October 2008. 10 best campaign organizers will meet in Budapest in November 2008 to exchange their experiences.
• DPS of Montenegro (Nada Drobnjak) and SDP of Croatia (Vesna Tokic) will jointly choose the theme and organize a meeting of left wing experts on the specific issue of the renewal of the SD child care policies in the SEE region in the fall and try to get the funding for this from one of the social democratic foundations. The outcomes of this meeting will be put on the web sites of all SD parties and the CEE Network for Gender Issues,
• We will test the approach proposed on this seminar in Macedonia, doing three local seminars in SDSM on this campaign till the end of June. Narrative reports from these seminars will also be electronically disseminated. These seminars will be carried out in cooperation between UWOM and local organizations of the SDSM.
DAY TWO:
• Vice president of the SIW for the CEE shortly presented history, organizational scheme, recent activities of the SIW and the preparations of the SIW for the congress in Athens.
We agreed to kindly ask our regional sister parties to support SDP of Kosova, which became a parliamentary party in the last Kosova elections, its request to be accepted in the SI membership.
• Sonja Lokar shortly presented the work of the PES W on the PES electoral Manifesto for 2009, and the CEE Network initiative for pan European Parity Coalition and Campaign, starting with this EU 2009 electoral campaign. She informed the participants, that this idea was accepted by the European Women’s Lobby, that 3 European Commissioners are in favor of it, especially Margot Wallstrom from Sweden, that PES Women put the parity in all decision making as one of their five priorities on their pledge card for the EU elections. The negotiations with European Trade Union Confederation are still to be opened, as well as a difficult work to get on board as many party groups from the EU parliament as possible.
MEDIA VISIBILTY OF THE SEMINAR
The seminar held in Skopje, was followed by the following electronic media: National TV Kanal 5 and National Macedonian TV, written media: VECHER.
PARTICIPANTS EVALUATING THE SEMINAR
The participants filled in the Evaluation form and gave the following “marks” (5 points for excellent, 1 point for really bad) to the seminar:
• The choice of the seminar’s themes: 11 answers: 5 points, 1 one answer 3 points
• Presentations:
1. Sonja Lokar : 11 answers:5 points, 1 form no answer
2. Croatia: 10 answers 5 points, , 1 answer 4 points, 1 form no answer
3. Albania: 10 answers 5 point, one answer 4 points, one form no answer
4. Kosova: 9 answers 5 points, 2 answers: 4 points, one form no answer
5. Macedonia: 10 answers 5 points, 1 answer 4 points, one from no answer
6. Montenegro: 8 answers 5 points, 2 answers: 4 points, 1 answer 3 points, one form no answer
• Materials prepared for the seminar:
1. Excellent : 10 answers
2. Good: : one answer
3. No answer: 1
• Methods used at the seminar:
1. Excellent : 10 answers
2. Good: : one answer
3. No answer: 1
• What is new that you have learned at this seminar?
1. How brave women strive for the better world
2. How should party work when it is in opposition
3. How important it is to campaign for an important gender equality issue
4. About children strategy and campaign for it: 2 answers
5. How women in SD parties strive for gender equality issues within their own party
6. How to react when the party is in opposition
7. No answer: 5 forms
• What are the chances that the agreements and conclusions that we have accepted at the seminar will be implemented
100 % - 5 answers
75% - 6 answers
50% - 1 answer
• What should be at the agenda of the next seminar?
1. No answer: 4
2. How to campaign when in position or in opposition
3. Heath protection of women
4. How to fight against discrimination of women
5. To hear about the outcomes of this campaign and its follow up
6. Equal pay for equal work – 2 answers
7. How to make the world better also for the hungry ones and the poor ones and how to prevent the climate change
8. How to fight domestic violence
Reporting: Sonja Lokar and the UWOM team in Macedonia: Savka Todorovska, president, and Elena Chalcheska – program coordinator in Skopje.
