Defending Women's Rights in Europe: Gender Equality and Eu Enlargement by Olga A Avdeyeva

Author:Olga A Avdeyeva [Avdeyeva, Olga A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781438455914
Google: dx5jCAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 26760371
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2015-04-17T08:04:40+00:00

Polish Institutions on Gender Equality

The first Polish Government Plenipotentiary for Women was established in 1986 under the communist government. The Council of Ministers introduced government mechanisms for the advancement of women in response to the UN Conference on Women in Nairobi in 1985 and this office operated until the collapse of the communist regime in October 1989 (Nowakowska 2000). In April 1991, a right-wing government, whose leaders were closely associated with the Catholic Church, reorganized the office on women’s affairs into the Government Plenipotentiary for Family and Women, reflecting the importance of the family component for policymakers. Troubled by the rising social controversy around the anti-abortion law of 1991, the government closed down the office on the grounds that there was no gender discrimination in Poland and, therefore, there was no need for such office (Nowakowska 2000). Ironically, it was Poland’s first female Prime Minister, Ms. Hanna Suchocka, who proposed shutting down the Government Plenipotentiary for Women and Family.

In 1993, new elections brought a reformed, ex-communist party back to the Polish Sejm. Liberal women’s organizations mobilized in hopes of changing the highly restrictive anti-abortion law and demanded that the government reestablish the Office on Women and Family. It was re-opened in 1994 before the Beijing Conference on Women. The office became quite active in establishing connections with international and domestic women’s organizations in preparation for the Beijing Conference and follow-up strategies and plans (Nowakowska 2000). As detailed earlier, the office drafted and adopted the National Plan of Action in response to the Beijing Platform for Action and established the Forum for the Cooperation of the Government Plenipotentiary for the Family and Women’s Affairs and of women’s NGOs.

But this office did not last long; in the 1997 election, the right-wing parties returned to power. A new government terminated all programs of the Plenipotentiary office, abolished government cooperation with NGOs, and changed its title to the Office on Family Affairs. New people replaced most of its staff. Kazimierz Kapera, a conservative right-wing politician from the Christian-National Union, became the Plenipotentiary. Kapera shut down most of the programs initiated under the leftist government and attempted to stop the cooperation between the government and women’s NGOs by asking central and local government officials to ignore questionnaires sent out by women’s NGOs in regard to the fulfillment of the National Action Plan (Zielińska 2002). This was the government’s response to the rising activism and protests of women’s organizations against the conservative turn in Polish policymaking. At the time, the Government Plenipotentiary for Family presented a socially conservative program in support of traditional family values, ignoring women’s groups and the European Commission’s demands to continue reforming the gender equality policy area.

The situation changed only when the left-wing parties won the elections in November 2001. Multiple women’s organizations excluded from the policymaking process by the right parties seized this opportunity and pressured the left-government for comprehensive reform. The activism of women’s organizations, however, was indispensable for the advancement of policies and institutions on gender equality even under the left parties in power.

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