In Montenegro, the customary right to renounce property in favor of male family members is stronger than the law, announced the president of the Safe Women's House, Ljiljana Raičević, and added that many women are not informed about the right to inherit and divide marital property.
At the press conference where research on women's property rights in Montenegro was presented, she said that the patriarchal ideology is extremely strong, so women, regardless of their economic position and level of education, most often believe that renouncing the right to property is a family tradition. .
"That is changing with the new generation, because they still understood that marriage may not last forever, that their children should also have a share of that common property," said Raičević.
According to her, women in Montenegro still dominantly renounce inheritance in favor of male family members, even though they are equal to them by law.
"Our practice shows that often during divorce or termination of cohabitation, women do not initiate the procedure for the division of property, even though they acquired it together with their partners during their life together. "Many women do not have information about the right of inheritance and division of marital property, but accept the established practice as a right," said Raičević.
Vladimir Raičević from the IPSOS agency presented the results of the research.
He said that the opinion of citizens is divided on the question of whether women have equal property rights in Montenegro, although "a slight majority of them believe that today women do not have the same rights to property as men".
"Only a third of the population fully knows how property is distributed between a man and a woman upon marriage. "60 percent of citizens know that in the event of the death of a parent, the property belongs to the children and the spouse," Raičević said.
According to him, 65 percent of divorced people believe that women do not have equal rights to property.
Raičević added that citizens from the north more often believe that women have equal rights to property as men, while citizens from the central part of the country more often state the opposite.
He stated that eight out of ten citizens believe that property acquired in marriage should be distributed equally, even if the woman was a housewife.
"Although it is believed that men and women should inherit family property equally, citizens believe that in reality men exercise these rights significantly more often. In the case of divorce, on the other hand, half of the citizens believe that property is distributed evenly," Raičević said.
According to him, the main factors behind the small number of women who own property are tradition, lack of information and fear of property belonging to another family.
Raičević added that there is an awareness of strong pressure from society.
"Thus, seven out of ten Montenegrin citizens believe that society condemns a woman who does not want to give up her property for the sake of her brother," he stated.
As Raičević added, in practice, family property is registered to male family members much more often.
When it comes to information, as he stated, the majority of citizens believe that the Montenegrin public is not sufficiently informed about women's property rights, and a third of the citizens have a personal interest in this topic.
Raičević said that seven out of ten citizens primarily see state institutions as responsible for information, followed by the media, educational institutions and the non-governmental sector.
The head of the department for gender equality, Biljana Pejović, said that gender equality is recognized as a priority area and that for two years the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights has had funds available for projects and programs of non-governmental organizations aimed at achieving that equality.
"The Ministry recognized the Safe Women's House project. It is a project that contributes to us to improve the legislation and to raise awareness of property rights in Montenegro", she stated.
Pejović said that data from the Real Estate Administration show that the statistics are improving from year to year, but that they are not yet at a satisfactory level when it comes to the percentage of female rights holders.
"There are municipalities where a lot of work needs to be done to raise awareness of women's property rights, such as Rožaje and Petnjica, while in Kotor, Podgorica and Pljevlja statistical data are at a satisfactory level," she stated.
That is why, as Pejović added, this research is important in order to raise awareness among women to be aware of their rights, but also for the improvement of gender equality policy.
"As signatories to the conventions, the Ministry undertook to improve the numerous rights of women, their property rights and property rights," she concluded.
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