The patriarchal tradition of Montenegrin society still propagates the male child as the favorite, as the heir to the family property and lineage, and this leads to the fact that girls are still unwanted, according to the vice-president of the Youth Forum of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Marijana Čvorović.
"Today, October 11, is the International Day of the Girl Child, and we are aware of the fact that in Montenegro the trend of prenatal sex selection is still very prevalent, boys are always preferred over girls," she said.
Čvorović pointed out that according to Monstat's data, 2019 more boys were born than girls in 331, even though the "Unwanted" campaign had a great response in the public, "this trend of favoring male children continues."
"The Ministry of Education continues to remain "deaf" to the cries of women's NGOs to adopt educational programs and content that would teach boys and girls equality from an early age and that a brother is not more important than a sister," says Čvorović.
The vice-president of the SDP Youth Forum also says that there are a large number of women who suffered pressure from the environment to have an abortion just because they are carrying a girl.
He believes that selective abortions will lead to major disruptions in society in a few years and that the number of men will be much higher than the number of women. Čvorović points out that selective abortion is morally, ethically and medically unacceptable and that it violates several laws at the same time.
"most political parties programmatically advocate for women's gender equality and their greater involvement in political life and decision-making, both at the state and local level, but practice does not confirm this. The reasons for this state of affairs are usually the conservative understanding of the role of women in Montenegrin society , the lack of courage of the women themselves for their own influence and presence in public life, as well as men's doubts that women can cope with this way of life and work at all," Čvorović writes in the statement.
Also, another of the problems that women encounter is the lack of support from the family and the environment, she believes.
"Montenegro has signed a large number of international and internal documents that deal with women's participation in political life as well as gender equality, but most of the obligations from those documents remained just a dead letter on paper," she says.
Čvorović adds that the role of the media is crucial in raising awareness of this problem, as well as a high-quality and long-term campaign that would include educational programs in schools and be supported from the state level with all the necessary resources.
Bonus video:
