Commissioner for the Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic gave lecture on the gender equality, within the final module of „School of Democracy“, organized by the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA) and Open Parliament Initiative, in cooperation with OSCE Mission in Serbia.

Addressing the attendants of the lecture, Commissioner accented that the mechanisms for the protection of gender equality are defined by numerous domestic and international law regulations, but that in spite of that, gender equality still isn’t a part of everyday life, because prevailing relationship models are still founded on patriarchal patterns and stereotypes about the roles of women and men in the society.

„Women are regularly facing both bold and hidden forms of underestimation, exclusion, humiliation and even violence, just because they are women, while women from multi-marginalized groups are predominantly exposed to discrimination and almost not existing in the public life, especially in decision making places. There is no regulation, however perfect it may be, that would lead to factual gender equality. Only the change of awareness and education of all actors in society can break these prejudices and allow us to have true equal chances, regardless of the sex that was given to us by birth”, said Commissioner Jankovic.

Commissioner also introduced the attendants of the School of Democracy with the role and competences of the institution and pointed that the practice of the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality reveals that the sex is one of the two most frequents discrimination grounds, according to the number of complaints that were filed by citizens.

Attendants of this lecture were students, young political parties’ activists and representatives of civil society organizations.