Under pressure: raising the profile of gender equality in Latvia

Although debate on gender equality is relatively new to Latvia, it is situated at the crux of the country's current transition in two interconnected spheres - as developing modern nation and candidate for European accession. In both areas Latvia can benefit from increasing internationalisation to further equal rights for women together with its general developmental objectives.

Like many of its European counterparts, Latvia can claim to have achieved formal (legal) equality of genders. No legislation or other normative text allows for discrimination on grounds of gender. Gender equality is occasionally provided in legislation, but as yet insufficiently. A new Labour Law requires the implementation of several equality provisions, including access to work, equal pay and paternity regulations, bringing national labour law into line with the relevant EC legislation. [1] As a member of the Council of Europe and the UN, Latvia has acceded to a number of human rights instruments and declarations which enshrine the principle of non-discrimination, including the Declaration of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. However - again like other European nations - in practice the picture is far from rosy. Experts have pointed to numerous gender inequalities in everyday life: occupational segregation and unequal pay; gender dissymmetries in health and poverty indicators; under-representation of women in political decision-making processes; and imbalance in the division of household work and family responsibilities. At the far end of the scale, violence against women is not unknown in Latvia. [2]

But even this picture is far from complete. There are no reliable analyses of the mutual relations between sexes, and of existing processes and policies that facilitate inequality, directly or indirectly. There are few experts in the field of gender studies, equipped to provide such analyses, to explain or even explore imbalances, or to develop and/or monitor effective strategies and programmes to address them. Gender-sensitive budget analyses, for example, have not been performed in Latvia to date. Effective policy formulation is not possible without reliable, comprehensive information (statistical data, research, analyses and other appropriate data) about the situation and status of men and women in the social, economic, political and other areas of life.

Exacerbating this statistical vacuum, the very concept of gender equality is not yet widely understood in Latvia. Even today, ten years after independence, the issue is often understood not in terms of equal opportunities and equal social value for both genders, but instead as an elimination of the specificity of gender. This harks back to the Soviet policy of providing ideological norms without allowing for their discussion or analysis. Many Latvians still think of gender equality as a euphemism for the "double burden" forced on women in those times, at once primary carers in the family and productive members of the labour force. In Latvia, as elsewhere, women still perform the lion's share of unpaid, often undervalued, work within the home, which can include childcare, caring for the elderly, preparing meals, cleaning and other household tasks as well as community services. On the other hand today, as in the Soviet era, men have generally one main role - that of breadwinner. They are frequently excluded from other family responsibilities.

Nevertheless, it is increasingly recognised that inattention to gender disparities has serious implications for human - and national - development and the prosperity of a society as a whole. Enhancing gender equality is thus increasingly seen as a priority of development policy. Pressure resulting from EU accession, on the one hand, and women's NGOs on the other, have contributed to this new emphasis.

Good intentions are not enough

Enlargement requires that, beyond harmonisation of legislation, applicant countries introduce general EU principles, including on gender equality. Although Latvia has incorporated certain EU directives on equal treatment into its national legislation, more recent moves within the EU to "mainstream" gender equality have not yet been replicated. "Mainstreaming" gender equality within all common EU policies has its roots in the 1998 Amsterdam Treaty, which goes beyond the elimination of existing inequality to active promotion of positive actions to ensure real equality. [3] Latvia has only just begun to set out on this route. The National Gender Equality Implementation policy, largely facilitated by the accession process, is a good illustration.

At the close of the year 2000, the "Gender Focal Point", established within the Ministry of Welfare, elaborated a draft policy document in close consultation with non-governmental organizations and other experts. The draft took as its starting point an EU Council decision of December 2000 establishing a programme relating to the "community framework strategy on gender equality for 2001-2005". [4] This established EU "mainstreaming" within domestic Latvian policy. The resulting policy document asserts the following operational objectives:

• strengthening the gender dimension in employment strategies;
• improving the gender balance in political decision-making;
• improving the gender balance in economic and social decision-making;
• raising awareness about gender equality issues and others as appropriate. [5]

In the course of drafting, many of the amendments proposed by various institutions illustrated an often profound gap between good intentions on the one hand, and a clear grasp of the issues at stake on the other. There was an evident lack of information on the reality of gender issues in Latvia, and an apparently insufficient understanding of the consequences of not addressing them. Few of the participants had a thorough grasp of Latvia's international commitments, and little clarity about the relationship between state and gender politics was displayed. [6]

The document was finally passed by the Cabinet of Ministers recently - almost a year after its preparation. Unfortunately no additional funding was approved for the activities provided for.

However, work is underway to address this gap. A combination of NGO input, international recommendations and EU accession policy development has led the Ministry of Welfare to allocate funds for surveys and analysis of the current situation. For instance, the Ministry has supported research on public attitudes towards gender equality, intended to locate areas where inequality is most prevalent.

Raising the profile of gender equality in Latvian policymaking

Despite all this, the obstacles to the task of raising the profile of gender equality issues on the political agenda and mainstreaming them remain impressive. A primary problem, for example, is linguistic: there is no exact or widely accepted Latvian translation of either the terms "gender" or "mainstreaming". Little wonder that the concept of "gender" is not fully understood by many, be they policymakers, legislators, practitioners or beneficiaries. Indeed, it is fair to say that these phrases have come into use in Latvian policy documents as a direct result of the EU accession process. The nascent pro-equality approach of policymakers has been directly influenced through co-operative ventures in the context of accession: access to information on successful practices; participation in various European task forces; developments in other European countries; the accessibility of guidelines and strategies; and the gradual incorporation of legislative norms. These have gradually engendered understanding of the real significance of mainstreaming and gender-sensitive policy, and its context within the overall objective of sustainable human development.

The accession process can help further. By facilitating the training of experts, by exchange of successful practices, and by the cost-effective involvement of international experts, EU "mainstreaming" can be brought to bear directly on Latvian policymaking. Why elaborate from scratch training programs on gender equality issues for civil servants, or codes of practice on measures to ensure equal pay for equal work when existing methods can be adapted to the Latvian context at little or no cost? Many EU countries have already developed action plans on gender mainstreaming, and tested impact assessment and monitoring strategies. The potential to exploit existing international case studies on the successful integration of human rights in planning, development and policy should not be wasted. Latvia has taken its first steps towards the development of such documents. Why not take advantage of a growing international profile to learn from countries that have walked this road before them?

Footnotes

[1] Analysis of Latvian Legislation from a Gender Perspective, Dace Kavasa, 2000.

[2] See UNDP, Gender and Human Development in Latvia, Riga, 1999; Latvia Academy of Sciences, Time Use by Gender in Latvia Riga, 1999; Putting People First: Challenges and Opportunities, United Nations Common Country Assessment, 2000; Information provided by the Social Policy Development Department, Ministry of Welfare among others.

[3] Treaty Establishing the European Community, consolidated version incorporating the Amsterdam Treaty, Art. 141.

[4] Communication from the Commission of the European Communities on the Community Framework Strategy on Gender Equality (2001-2005), COM (2000) 335 final, 2000/0143 (CNS).

[5] Concept on the implementation of Gender Equality in Latvia, prepared by Ministry of Welfare, 2000.

[6] These observations were made during my participation in the drafting process as Executive Director of the Coalition for Gender Equality.