Association for Equal Opportunities informs Czech women about benefits of EU accession
Saturday was International Women's Day, an event celebrated around the world every year. The Association for Equal Opportunities chose the eve of International Women's Day to launch a nationwide campaign which will try and inform Czech women about the pros and cons of European Union membership. After the fall of communism, International Women's Day fell into disregard in this country, so I asked Michaela Marksova-Tominova, the deputy chairwoman of the Association for Equal Opportunities, whether the choice of the date was deliberate.
The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the turn of the century, which in the industrialised world was a period of expansion, booming population growth and radical ideologies.
On March 8, 1857, women working in clothing and textile factories in New York City staged a protest. They were fighting against inhumane working conditions and low wages. Police attacked the protestors and dispersed them. Two years later, again in March, these women formed their first labour union to try and protect themselves and gain some basic rights in the workplace.
"Well, I chose the day because the campaign we organise is actually targeted at women. Now we are starting to organise seminars, discussions with women in the whole country and explain to them how they already benefited from the EU because they may not know about it and how they may benefit even more in the future."
Three months ahead of the EU referendum, the Association for Equal Opportunities started their pro-accession information campaign targeted at women. Also present at the launching was Ramiro Cibrian, the head of the European Commission Delegation in the Czech Republic. I asked him why he thought women needed a special campaign and why there was not a separate campaign for men.
"We have two aspects of the problem here. We have a general campaign, which is targeted at everybody, every human being - men and women. And then we know that there are some specific groups in society which are characterised by having more questions than usual. Let me say, one group of people is, for example, senior people. Senior people, retired people. People that already are on pension. So of course, we have specific activities, specific efforts, specific brochures. I try to speak with groups of retired people as much as I can, as far as I am concerned. Another group is of course, women, another group are workers. So yes, we have particular activities for the groups of the population, which in our view, have greater doubts and have greater needs to have these doubts clarified through objective and qualified information. And this we try to do for these groups of the society, including, of course, the group of women and women at home. I myself, when I travel around the country, I try to have as many meetings as possible with representatives of women's organisations around the country, because I imagine that they are indeed representative of the preoccupations of women and they are opinion-makers and that through the normal contact in daily life they can help clarify plenty of questions that women have concerning the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union."
Mr Cibrian has spent a few years in this country and he speaks Czech fluently. Has he come across many stereotypes or cases of discrimination on grounds of sex during his stay?
"Not directly, to tell you the truth. I believe, as far as life in Prague and many other places is concerned, Czech women are pretty much on a good level of respect of their rights etc. But we all know that there are situations of discrimination. For example, as regards conditions in the working place, different salaries for the same work, access to top leadership positions inside the private sector. And of course, issues related to violence inside the family. But let me say these problems are generic, these problems exist in the whole world. As a matter of fact, if we take the whole world as our reference point - and this is always a very good reference, there is no question that the situation in Europe, in the advanced industrialised world is comparatively better. But this does not mean at all that there is not still room for improvement, to make further efforts in order to eliminate situations that are clearly unfair and unjustifiable. So my impression is, as I say, these are three areas that come to my mind: they are economic conditions in the working place, access to top management positions in both the public and the private sector - even more perhaps in the private sector than the public sector and, of course the question of domestic violence and domestic conditions are issues in which I'm sure there is still room for improvement."
Michaela Marksova-Tominova, from the Association for Equal Opportunities told me a concrete example.
"Only if you look at the numbers from the Czech Statistical Office, for example, the average difference in salaries between men and women is about 25 percent. But if you look at the differences in certain groups, the biggest difference is in the group where people have the largest salaries and the highest education and in this group, women get about 54 percent of salaries of their male colleagues."
According to recent polls, women as a social group seem to be among the most undecided about their stand in the upcoming EU referendum. The campaigners say it is therefore vital to address especially those women who have the least access to information and are at the same time the most apprehensive. Among those are for example women pensioners and women on maternity leave.
"It is very important to reach women in all regions of the country, although it is, of course, very difficult. But I hope we will do it with the help of the regional media. I think that [women] are mostly worried about things like prices of food and so on. But I think that they don't know about the things which are positive, for example, about the changes in the labour law."
Those are prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sex, legal status of sexual harassment or introduction of the institute of parental, rather than just maternal leave. Whereas issues such as domestic violence have not yet been thoroughly catered for by the law. Ramiro Cibrian of the European Commission Delegation.
"I believe the second non-discrimination directive still remains to be adopted by the Czech parliament. There is time, certainly, but it is clear that this second non-discrimination directive has to be adopted, too before the date of accession. Because, of course, the Czech Republic has not requested any transition period concerning these non-discrimination directives. That means that on May 1st, 2004 all the European legislation for which no transition period was requested has to be in force in the Czech Republic. That of course includes the two non-discrimination directives. I believe the first one was already approved by the Czech parliament, the second one is in the process of being discussed and the process of being approved by the parliament. And it is very important that this approval of the second non-discrimination directive be completed and the directive be in force before accession day."
