OPINION

The opinion was issued in the proceedings regarding the complaint of the union of feminist organizations against the Ministry of Culture and Information. In the complaint, it was stated that in the tenders for financing and co-financing of projects in 2019, the Ministry of Culture and Information did not support any of the women’s organizations that submitted an application and that deal with research, affirmation and production of women’s culture. Further, the results of the analysis of the decision on the allocation of funds at the ministry’s tenders were stated, which indicate the ministry’s treatment of women’s projects, namely, women’s creativity as an individual authorship act, collective or joint work, as well as a topic of research, verification, processing and production by women or organizations which are gender balanced, women researchers, theorists, and curators. In the statement, it was specified that the co-financing contest in 2019 is carried out according to the criteria defined in the Regulation on criteria, measures and methods for selection of projects in culture that are financed and co-financed from the budget of the Republic of Serbia, the autonomous province, that is, the local self-government unit, that in addition to these criteria the priorities for the given field of creativity, the priorities of public policies, and above all the quality of the project, the degree of influence on the life of the community, the capacities of the implementers, as well as a realistic and rational budget, were also taken into account. It is further stated that the contests are organized according to the fields of creativity, and if it is not explicitly stated that a project refers to the promotion of gender equality or this cannot be clearly seen from the very essence of the project, its contribution to gender equality cannot be determined. The analysis of the allegations of the complaint and statements made during the procedure determined that in 2019 the Ministry of Culture and Information announced over 20 contests, as well as that the number of supported women’s projects is small. The analysis of the justification of the reasons for not supporting women’s projects is possible only within the analysis of the application of the specific project in relation to the specific criteria of the competition, which is not possible in this particular case given the generalization of the complaint. Based on the facts established during the proceedings, it does not necessarily follow that there is a causal connection between the small number of supported women’s projects and gender as a personal characteristic. Due to all of the above, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality issued the opinion that in the proceedings based on the complaint of the union of feminist organizations the Ministry of Culture and Information did not violate the provisions of the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination. Bearing in mind the number of supported projects that promote women’s cultural creativity in relation to the number of women engaged in the creation of cultural assets and the share of women in the general population of Serbia, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, in accordance with the prescribed competence from Article 33, Item 9 of the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination, recommended measures for the promotion of equality to the Ministry of Culture and Information, namely to undertake activities of introducing special (affirmative) measures in order to achieve full equality, protection and progress of women in the field of cultural creativity, with the aim of realizing the policy of gender equality.

COMMISSIONER FOR THE PROTECTION OF EQUALITY

Brankica Janković