MPs Stefana Miladinovic and Dubravka Filipovski took part in the Women Political Leaders Annual Global Summit on 28-30 November, in Reykjavik, Republic of Iceland.
This year’s Summit, hosted by the Parliament of Iceland – a global champion of gender equality, was attended by over 400 women politicians from more than 100 countries from around the world.
The participants deliberated on the global challenges, exchanged experiences and best practice examples, and discussed the influence of women politicians on world events and the prospects of women’s political participation.
MPs Stefana Miladinovic and Dubravka Filipovski took active part in the panels of the three-day Summit.
Stefana Miladinovic was one of the panellists at the session on “Labour market inclusion - powered by Digital”.
“Boosting the numbers of women in the digital sector, which happens to have some of the highest salaries, could contribute to the financial empowerment and independence of women and help reduce the gender pay gap. The states should focus on women aged 55 and more because this category is especially susceptible to unemployment risks. Serbia has for years been conducting a prequalification programme for employment in the IT sector which yields 1000 prequalifications annually through intensive courses, taking into consideration age and gender structure”, said Miladinovic.
She stressed that digitalization is one of the Serbian Government’s internal policy priorities and that Serbia is ready to lead the region in the changes coming to open up new possibilities for everyone.
“With the third industrial revolution – the digital revolution, developing countries like Serbia have the chance to make up for lost time and catch up to the developed countries. Serbia is proud to note that it has a higher number of highly educated women working in the IT sector than the European or the world average. According to the official data of the Republic Statistical Office the field employs 44% women. In Europe that number is just above 30%”, said Miladinovic.
MP Dubravka Filipovski reacted to the statement of Atifete Jahjaga who, citing UN data at the panel “Women Belong in Politics”, said that 20,000 Albanian women were raped and a million Albanians exiled in the course of the war in Kosovo-Metohija.
“The information is incorrect that 20,000 Albanian women were raped and a million Albanians exiled in the course of the war in Kosovo-Metohija, it is a lie and manipulation of data. The representatives of the so-called state of Kosovo use summits such as this one to represent Albanian women from Kosovo-Metohija as victims, but that is not true. The truth is that before the NATO bombing, 90,000 Serbs were exiled and after the Serbian army withdrew in 1999 more than 200,000 Serbs, Roma and other non-Albanians left Kosovo-Metohija “, said Filipovski. She reminded the attending that according to official data the Republic of Serbia is the country with the most internally displaced people in Europe.
On the second day of the summit, at the panel on the 2030 Agenda for UN Sustainable Development Goals, Filipovski stated that parliamentary control is paramount in the pursuit of the sustainable development goals and the governments need to submit regular reports on the progress of the national plan. “In Serbia we do this through a focus group for parliamentary oversight. It is also very important to include young people, the civil sector and local self-governments in the pursuit of these goals”, stressed Filipovski.
On the behalf of the Serbian delegation, in the part where the national delegations made their statements during the adoption of the conclusions of the summit, Filipovski spoke about Serbia’s progress in the last year as regards protecting women’s rights and gender equality. She emphasized the importance of introducing gender-responsive budgeting into the drafting process of the annual programme budget of the Republic of Serbia, as well as the adoption of the Law on Preventing Domestic Violence and the changes to the Criminal Code.
