Empowering women’s structures to influence trade union policies, sub regional seminar for the NIS, Kishinev 6 and 7 July 2011

The PERC women’s committee together with the ILO/ACTRAV organized a sub-regional meeting for the women’s committees in the NIS region having the purpose to empower the women’s committee to face the challenges of increased insecurity on the labour market in the region; to discuss the situation of the women on the labour market in the region, the situation of women’s rights, the gender inequalities and instruments and actions to face the challenges. Around 30 partcipants took part in the meeting from almost all the NIS countries and the host organization CNSM.

The first day was dedicated to a detailed analyses of the situation of women workers in different NIS countries and discussion on trade union policies and the role of the women’s committees in finding the proper approach to face the challenges. The working groups came to proposals and ideas as concerns the functioning of the women’s network in the NIS and activities to be performed. The results of the group work will be presented at the PERC Women’s School in Vilnius to take place from 26 to 28 October in Vilnius. The second part of the meeting was dedicated to an analyses of the decent work , decent country programs and role of gender ; Ovidiu Jurca from the ILO Budapest presented in detail the possibilities the ILO is offering for trade unions in this direction. The gender audits and their role for effective implementation of gender mainstreaming in the policies, programs and trade union structures were presented by Susan Maybud from the ILO Geneva gender unit. Magnus Berge, the ILO Geneva project manager who supported this activity, expressed his interest in future collaboration with the women’s committees from the region in the direction of strengthening their power and influence on trade union policies.