On the occasion of 15 October, International Day of Rural Women, Commissioner for Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic visited Stanojevic household in village Pranjine near Gornji Milanovac, where three generations of women are living and working together. Radovina, the oldest one, her daughter in law Gordana and the youngest Jelena are an example that mutual support, understanding and solidarity among women of different generations is one of the most efficient ways to empower the role and significance of rural women.

“Stanojevic family shows that one can have a good life in the village. Such relation between generations and transfer of knowledge and love is a foundation of one nation’s mental health. We are a society where relations between people and generations are important and our villages nurture this tradition more than cities. We should preserve this”, says Commissioner Brankica Jankovic adding that this is the essence of every relation and narrative about human rights, because the right to equality is a matter of fulfilling our needs, both in villages and in cities.

By this visit, Commissioner for Protection of Equality wanted to focus on the positive aspect in the life of village women and to encourage other to have different observation of women in villages, instead of stereotype images of suffering and lonely old women.

Nevertheless, it does not mean that rural women don’t have many problems. Often, they don’t have official employment, salary, pension and health insurance. Many of them are managing households and do hard manual work, although a small number are owners of agricultural economy. They are also more exposed to discrimination and risk of poverty and social exclusion, because of insufficient access to various services. That is why it is very important that we, as a society, fully recognize the role of rural women, their contribution to local communities, in order to decrease their marginalization and increase value and recognition of their work.