Member of the Bosniak Party in Plav, Jasmina Cikotić, has the impression that she also faces tough battles for gender equality, which were thought to have ended seven and a half decades ago.
In the era of socialism, she reminds in an interview for Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG), women were equal in all areas of state, economic and socio-political life.
They participated more in the management of companies and the state, had the same salary as men for the same work, enjoyed special protection in the employment relationship - exemption from hard work for pregnant women and women giving birth, the right to free childbirth, abortion.
"The state protected the interests of mother and child and created a balance between private and professional life by opening nurseries and kindergartens in companies. If women realized their rights in 1945 by getting the vote, the right to choose and be chosen and everything else, it sounds absurd that today we are fighting the battles of our ancestors again", says Cikotić.
Montenegro is quite far from the proclaimed goal that 50 percent of women in the parliament and in all places where decisions are made are women and that gender is not an advantage or a barrier when hiring ordinary and managerial positions.
The direction is apparently good, but the pace is not.
During the last two election cycles, the largest increase in the participation of women was recorded in local parliaments, where the number of councilors was 28,85 percent.
The highest number of female councilors is represented in the Nikšić Municipality Assembly, 40 percent, and the lowest in Gusinje, only one in five.
After the last parliamentary elections in 2016, Montenegro achieved the highest percentage of women's participation in parliament in recent history at 23,5 percent. That percentage is slightly above the world average of 23 percent, but still below the average in the parliaments of European countries, which is 25,9 percent. The shift is evident, considering that in the period from 1998 to 2001, there were only five percent of women in the parliament. Meanwhile, on the eve of the election year, the number of female MPs increased to the current 27,9 percent.
That the representation of members of minority peoples in membership and in leadership positions, in decision-making bodies, committees and party bodies at the municipal and state level is a particularly tricky topic, the parties showed by mostly ignoring CIN-CG's questions about it.
After several weeks, the Liberal Party responded descriptively, stating that they do not keep such statistics, but that they know that women from minority nations are active in most local committees. "Within the party bodies, minority women are present in the Main Committee, while in the previous convocation, a minority woman was the vice-president of the party. At various intervals, the LP has, or has had, women from minority nations in the highest positions, who have the same chance as all other members," said the party.
The oral response of the Democrats also contained a remark that they do not count their membership by nationality, but added that they are continuously working on the participation of as many women as possible in all party bodies.
The Constitution guarantees members of minority nations and other minority national communities the right to authentic representation in the Parliament of Montenegro and assemblies of local self-government units in which they make up a significant part of the population, in accordance with the principle of affirmative action, as well as to proportional representation in public services, state and local self-government bodies .
"The position of Bosniak and Muslim women in politics is no different from other women in these regions. The party ensures women's participation at all decision-making levels, as well as quotas in the electoral system. But it is not enough to have laws and rules, it is necessary to apply them all. The application of quotas enabled a greater number of women, mainly at the local level. The number of councilors has increased, but not women in decision-making positions. The fact that parties or political representatives propose women to be in decision-making positions is being forgotten. Most of the time, these are women who are not gender conscious or who are part of a politician's family, and thus they are easier to manipulate," claims Cikotić.
The Serbian, Bosniak, Albanian, Muslim and Roma councils also failed to answer questions about the inclusion of women. The Croatian National Council was the only one to refer to the Croatian Citizens' Initiative (CCI). In the Municipality of Kotor, as announced by HGI, Ljiljana Velić participates in the legislative power with one councilor mandate. In local governing bodies, this party has four representatives, of which three are women: Aleksandra Marinović - member of the Council of OJU "Museums of Kotor", Zrinka Velić - member of the Council of OJU "Kulturni centar Nikola Đurković" and Suzana Nikčević - member of the Council of Tourist Organization of Kotor.
Until July, the Croatian Civic Initiative was the only party that had a president, the current minister without portfolio, Marija Vučinović.
The presidency of this party has eight members, half of whom are women. The HGI website also lists the composition of the party's Central Committee, headed by Ljerka Dragičević.
The general director of the Directorate for Labor Market and Employment in the Ministry of Labor Edina Dešić confirmed that we cannot be satisfied with the position of women in politics and their participation in decision-making positions.
"Certainly, we cannot say that the trend is encouraging, both at the level of the entire society and my national community. I believe that there are no significant differences in other national communities in Montenegro either. The view on that issue is part of our common, collective tradition, which assigned women some other places, not political and not those where the most important decisions for the community are made,'' Dešić told CIN-CG.
She is particularly concerned about the fact that there is no change in awareness, but progress is made primarily by imposing legal obligations on the representation of women.
Electoral laws that regulated greater representation of women were adopted on two occasions. The 30 percent quota, adopted in 2011, had a formal flaw. There were no sanctions, nor was it prescribed that a female MP who leaves parliament be replaced by another woman. The changes from 2014 corrected this, which resulted in an increase in the participation of female deputies in the parliament by five percent compared to 2012, when it was only 18,5 percent.
Dešić believes that a lot of work needs to be done to change awareness and more visible support of the entire society for women in order to activate them politically and professionally: "Who asks a politician if he is capable enough to be in a decision-making position. For a woman, this is an unavoidable question if she finds herself in that position".
As a member of the Bosniak Party (BS), Dešić points out that, "The BS Women's Forum has the full support of President Rafeto Husović to participate in politics on an equal basis with men, and we have received confirmation on several occasions that this is substantive, not declarative, support".
According to the internet presentation of BS, there are no women in its management bodies. Of the 15 members of the Youth Forum, four are women. The municipal board of BS Rožaje has 145 women out of 22 members. There are eight of 55 members in the Bijelo Polje Municipal Board, and only 65 in the Podgorica Board of 16 members. There are no women in the position of president of municipal boards. There is only one vice president – in Berane.
Kenana Strujić, the president of the BS Women's Forum, tells CIN-CG that Montenegrin society has always put women on the back burner: "There were rare examples of a woman being in a responsible position. Speaking from the position of a Bosniak woman at the head of the Women's Forum, I can say that the situation has improved significantly. Women from our corps are in decision-making positions at the local and state level. If you ask me if I am satisfied, I will tell you that I am not completely. We need to advocate more, for greater participation and for them not to be just a number on party lists, but to be trusted to manage the processes. We have many examples from Europe and the world, where women lead the main political processes. I believe that we in Montenegro have the capacity and quality to responsibly perform the highest functions".
Ljuljete Sefe, a member of the Democratic Union of Albanians, believes that women from national minorities are additionally threatened. He warns that the overall position of Albanians, their political participation at the state level and employment in state institutions, which he considers unsatisfactory, must first be taken into account.
"Directly or indirectly, Albanian women in Montenegro are twice as marginalized. There is no political strategy, neither from international institutions that deal with the issue of gender equality, nor from the state itself, for the empowerment of women who belong to a certain national minority," says Sefe.
Cikotić believes that the position of women largely depends on them as well: "The party opens up opportunities and offers a chance, but a good number of women hesitate to engage in politics specifically." There is a belief that politics is not for women, it is a man's job".
She claims that gender-based roles prevent women from becoming more actively involved in politics, and the greater presence of men in the decision-making process and the absence of solidarity among women contribute to this: "They judge each other very easily, while men are forgiven. For the most part, women project their position in politics through the influence of tradition and prefer to be in operational positions rather than in decision-making positions, losing sight of the opportunities that active political action opens up. They give up politics and ambitions very quickly. In the case of young and educated women, this is a loss for society and politics".
"Since the beginning of the multi-party system, we have not had a woman president of the Albanian national party, member of the Parliament of Montenegro, president of a municipality or municipal assembly, not to mention a ministerial or ambassadorial position, a director of a public company or an institution founded by the state," points out Hadixhe Gjoni, vice-president Municipality of Ulcinj.
In the Ulcinj Municipal Assembly, thanks to the introduction of quotas, the number of female councilors has increased, so out of 33 councilor seats they occupy eight, of which seven are of Albanian nationality. However, there are no women in the positions of directors of local companies founded by the Municipality, Gjoni points out. Of the institutions founded by the state - the exception is the director's position in the Kindergarten "Solidarity" in Ulcinj. In addition to being the vice-president of the Municipality, she is the secretary of the Secretariat for Administration and Social Activities in the local administration. There are only a few more managerial positions held by women.
"In schools, clinics, the prosecutor's office, the judiciary, the center for social work, the health fund, managers are men. Most national Albanian parties have women's forums. A certain number of women are also in the party bodies, however, in my opinion, it is still insufficient and I can freely say that they lag behind in comparison to other parties in Montenegro. Unfortunately, these indicators vividly show that certain stereotypes and prejudices are hard to eliminate," Gjoni points out.
"Inclusion of women in the sphere of politics and decision-making in Montenegro takes a long time and we have not yet reached the standards that we call pro-European. Unlike us, they have long been achieved in most countries of the region. When it comes to women from the Albanian population in Montenegro, the situation is incomparably more difficult," she concludes.
For two years, the Women's Political Network (ŽPM) has been campaigning for the introduction of a quota of 40 percent representation of women in parliament. The proposal was included in the draft electoral legislation, and in December the Law on Political Parties was passed, according to which women in parties receive funds for their political work in accordance with the proposals of the ŽPM.
Despite the progress, Montenegro will find it difficult this year to fulfill the United Nations' expectation that 40 percent of women will be in political life and in parliament, which is foreseen in the National Sustainable Development Strategy.
Ljuljete Sefe, member of the Democratic Union of Albanians: Slow and way off the mark
"In recent decades, leaders of countries and international organizations have undertaken a series of actions and adopted strategies to promote the representation of women in all areas of decision-making. In 1988, the Council of Europe for the first time in the "Declaration on Equality and Women" predicted that "gender equality is an integral part of human rights and that without achieving it there can be neither social justice nor democracy." ". And the Beijing Declaration from 1995, which is one of the most powerful international statements, says that "women's empowerment and their full participation in all spheres of society, including decision-making, are a basic condition for achieving equality, for development and peace." The European Institute for Gender Equality, with special recommendations in 2006, called on member states to change the electoral system and apply the quota system and other mechanisms in order to achieve gender equality in politics and decision-making.
The electoral system is one of the important factors that affects the number of women representatives in local and state parliaments. There are several electoral systems in pluralism, but from the three main systems: majoritarian, proportional and mixed, he proved that the application of quotas to the proportional electoral system is the best way to achieve the representation of women in parliament.
Despite the fact that Montenegro aspires to join the EU and that it has signed numerous international conventions in which it undertakes to implement active measures to ensure full gender equality in all spheres, and that women make up 50 percent of the population, they are still the most unrepresented group in Montenegrin politics. . That is why setting a gender quota of 30 percent was considered necessary for the empowerment of women in politics and decision-making positions. It took 14 years and eight amendments to finally adopt it. Thus, it is clearly seen that Montenegro has made slow progress in the participation of women in politics and in decision-making positions.
Unfortunately, not a single civic or national party exceeded the quota of 30 percent representation of women in their electoral lists."
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