Summer school promotes gender equality and women's rights in Kyrgyzstan
Government ministry and agency representatives meet to increase their gender equality knowledge, review international commitments and promote women’s empowerment in the Kyrgyz Republic.Date:
Gender focal points from across Kyrgyzstan’s government levels met 21-27 July to exchange best gender equality promotion practices, examine gaps in the protection of women’s rights, and review Kyrgyzstan’s implementation of its various international and national commitments on gender equality, including:
- The 2015-2017 National Action Plan on Gender Equality
- The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
- UN Security Council Resolution 1325
- The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Gender-responsive budgeting.
An initiative of the Ministry of Labour and Social Development conducted by the Women Support Center, the Peace and Gender-Responsive Inclusive Development Gender Summer School was organized by UN Women Kyrgyzstan under the UN Peacebuilding Fund project Building a Constituency for Peace.
Kyrgyzstan’s Minister of Labour and Social Development Mr. Kudaibergen Bazarbaev told participants that promoting gender equality ensured balanced development: “If we all work together, we will achieve great results and make our children’s lives better.”
Commending the Kyrgyz Republic for its open democratic political system and for having the strong legal framework needed to implement the Constitution’s gender equality requirements, UN Women Kyrgyzstan Representative Mr. Gerald Gunther, however, noted that international bodies had raised concerns regarding impunity in the country’s justice sector because of often ineffective implementation of laws relating to crimes of violence against women and girls.
“Socio-economic development can only be effective if everyone, including the half of the population that is female, has full and equal opportunity to participate in economic, social and political life,” said Mr. Gunther.
Summer school attendees included representatives from Kyrgyzstan’s Ministries of Finance, Labour and Social Development, Health, Economy, Justice, Culture, and Emergency Situations; the General Staff of the Armed Forces; the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court; the National Statistical Committee; the State Committee on Religious Affairs; the State Personnel Service; the State Committee of Information Technology and Communications; the mayor's office in Osh and provincial administrations.
Attendees shared international and national gender equality implementation experiences with Kyrgyzstan MPs Ms. Taalaikul Isakunova and Ms. Ainuru Altybaeva, Ms. Tatyana Jiteneva of UN Women’s Women, Peace and Security section, and UN Women Moldova’s Mr. Corneliu Eftodi.