At the sitting held on 22 April, the Gender Equality Committee debated the topic “Poverty and unemployment among women in times of economic crisis”. The sitting was chaired by the Committee Chairperson, Gordana Paunovic –Milosavljevic, and attended by Natalija Micunovic, head of the Gender Equality Directorate at the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and Miroslav Jovic, representative of the National Employment Agency.

In the opening address, Natalija Micunovic presented the National Strategy for Improving the Position of Women and Promotion of Gender Equality adopted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia in February this year. The National Strategy envisions working towards increasing the involvement of women in decision-making processes and achieving equal representation on all levels and in all areas. Also, the Strategy envisions working towards achieving gender equality in education, improving the economic position of women so as to achieve gender equality, improving women’s health and promoting gender equality in health policy, as well as preventing and suppressing violence against women and improving victim protection. The strategy also envisages work on removing gender stereotypes in the media and promotion of gender equality.

Miroslav Jovic presented the position of women on the Serbian job market through comparative statistical analysis. By the end of December 2008, the National Employment Agency listed 727,621 registered unemployed, 53.97% of which were women.

The Committee members went on to discuss the data and posed questions to the present guests.