Women And Youth Empowerment In The Slovak Republic

Throughout Human history people have been making discriminations based on race, color, gender, age even the religion of the others. After many years people seem to understand that there are not the differences that matter but the similarities that unite us to what is called human kind. However it is difficult to alter these discriminatory attitudes that have been cultivated for thousands of years. Especially regarding gender equality primarily and youth secondarily, that concern us, people seem reluctant to repudiate obsolete prejudices, which promote that women and youth are not capable of meeting the challenges of the modern life. Unfortunately women do not enjoy equal rights as men in any aspect of their life: they are paid less, they work more and they are excluded from the decision making process. Worst, they have the “responsibility” of raising a child with limited protection of maternity. Even in the 21st century 200 hundred years after the first declaration of women rights neither the society nor the states – in some cases – treat men and women equally. The same applies for youth too since young people usually are considered as underaged and unready to be trusted with high responsibilities which inter alia is the cause of high unemployment and precarious employment rate among the youth. What is more, in a world with limited capacity of absorbing young human capital youth has little possibility of becoming immediately an inseparable, productive and promising part of each society. For all the above reasons we should focus on the empowerment of these two groups, women and youth, and more specifically through their total integration to an equal, fair, inclusive and healthy society that does not oppress their members but instead tries to make the most of all of them in order to thrive.

Surely much progress has been made from the time when women and youth were not objects to any rights. Our country is proud to declare that was one of the first that gave women suffrage in 1918 as some other European countries did at the start of the 20th century. Slovak republic has also ratified the next major step forward to women’s rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) firstly in 1980 as part of Czechoslovakia and then in 1993 as Slovak republic. On international level from 2004 our country as part of the EU has harmonized national legislation with EU standards and promotes all the European policies against discrimination. On a national base Slovakia as a European and democratic country enact gender equality to the national constitution and the labor code. It also promotes legislation that ensure the protection of maternity (238 days maternity leave, guaranteed job, parental leave for both parents). What is more through the establishment of the Desk for Equal Opportunities and Antidiscrimination promotes strategies and policies for the empowerment of women such as the National Strategy for Gender Equality (2014-2019) and the related Action Plan for Gender Equality. As for the youth the Slovak Republic recognizes that an investment to young people is an investment to the future of the country. The percentage of youth NEET which is 15,9% -a bit above the international and well below the euro-Mediterranean average- shows that there is still room for improvement. That is why we have established the National Youth Strategy (2014-2020) which aims to the empowerment of young people through a holistic and ambitious plan that focuses mainly on 5 sectors: education, employment, entrepreneurship, participation in decision making and social inclusion.

The empowerment of youth and women is a demand based on the fundamental principles of social justice, human rights and democracy in general. What is more it is an investment on unexploited human capital that can only pay off. After all no country is so rich in order to ignore and oppress its available human recourses and Slovakia is no exception to that. The empowerment is a difficult but specific process that can only be achieved through an holistic well designed strategy that should focus on 3 points: employment, decision-making participation and social inclusion. The increase of the employment rate and the quality of employment of youth and women are a crucial step in order for these two groups to become an autonomous and productive part of the society. Measures like legislation and check mechanisms to prevent pay gap, public employment services, educational or training programs and ALMPs are of outmost importance to be taken. Financial support to start-up businesses, better protection of maternity and subsidies for full-time jobs or starting businesses are the next step on improving employment conditions. Regarding the decision making sector the delegation of Slovakia believes that our first priority should be on the one hand legislation that does not set gender and especially age limitation on taking office in politics. On the other hand actions such as educational programs, experiential programs, models of political institutions’ operation, projects promoting the participation of these two groups in national but especially in regional and local based collective bodies and the creation of youth politics organization will bring women and youth closer to politics. However, participation in decision making except from politics also includes the right of every legal-age human and especially women to decide for herself – which must be guaranteed through legislation and educational/promotional projects.

Lastly, the most important part of the empowerment is social inclusion which can be achieved only through the success of the above mentioned policies. It also demands however educational plans and strategies about gender equality, experiential programs that bring different groups together and the extra support – of every kind- of each state to the vulnerable groups and minorities that are affected the most such as refugees and ethnic minorities. The Slovak Republic believes that if we achieve all the above then we will have a successful empowerment of youth and women and through that stronger, richer and healthier societies that give equal opportunities and rights to their members in every aspect of life.