Gender Equality

With the support of UN Women, UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA, through the Joint Programme on Gender Equality and Domestic Violence, the Albanian government adopted sub-legislation to enable the functioning of the institutions provided for in the Gender Equality Law. This led to the establishment of the National Council on Gender Equality, which now meets regularly to discuss important issues in the field of gender equality and domestic violence. As mentioned above, collection of data to monitor implementation of gender equality obligations has now been made mandatory. During training sessions, key professionals, including labour standards inspectors, judges, prosecutors, law professors and civil servants at both local and central levels, were made aware of the new requirements under gender equality and domestic violence legislation and given the opportunity to discuss the underlying principles. For domestic violence in particular, this training has brought professionals a long way from their initial denial of domestic violence as a phenomenon, towards an understanding of its traits, causes and consequences, and an increased awareness of their legal obligations. These professionals are now following protocols, resulting in higher quality service provision to victims of domestic violence. The number of citizens coming forward to request protection or legal remedies under this legislation continues to increase. At the same time, courts are issuing ever increasing numbers of protection orders, especially in larger jurisdictions.

 With UN support, MOLSAEO led the participatory process of evaluation and revision of the National Strategy on Gender Equality and Domestic Violence. The revised strategy (2011–2015) focuses on key priority areas for which a costing exercise will be conducted so as to allow for better resourcing for its implementation from government funds and more effective donor support. The final version should be presented to the Council of Ministers in the spring of 2011.

Source: 2010 Annual Progress Report