Gender equality is fixed as the Sustainable Development Goal 5 “gender equality and women’s empowerment”. According to the UN, gender equality is not only one of the basic human rights, but also a necessary basis for achieving peace, prosperity and sustainable development. Sustainable Development Goal 5 aims to address issues such as the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, including human trafficking; recognition of unpaid household work and the principle of shared responsibility in the family as a value; ensuring the full and real involvement of women and equal opportunities for decision-making in political, economic and public life; ensuring access to reproductive health services and economic resources, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper writes.
According to the 2022 population and housing census, around 50% of the population in Turkmenistan is male, and over 50% is female.
In Turkmenistan, men and women have equal rights and opportunities. This is enshrined in the Constitution of the country, as well as in the Family, Labor, Electoral, Civil Codes, in the Code on Social Protection of the Population, in the Laws “On Employment”, “On Education”, “On Public Health Protection”, “On Public Service”, “On state guarantees of equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men” and in other regulatory legal acts. In 2020, the second “National Action Plan for Gender Equality in Turkmenistan for 2021-2025” was approved.
The second Voluntary National Review on the Implementation of the SDGs, presented by Turkmenistan at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, which was held in July this year in New York (USA), confirmed the country’s progress in implementing gender policy.
Here are some figures:
- In 2022, the share of seats held by women in the National Parliament was 25.7%.
- The share of women in local representative bodies (people’s councils) is 21.7 %
- In 2022, the proportion of women in senior positions was 22.4 %
- In the structure of the number of employees of large and medium-sized enterprises, the share of women in 2021 was 42.5 %
- The share of women entrepreneurs in 2022 is 32.5 %
- Girls make up 2/3 of the students in secondary vocational educational institutions
- The share of female students in higher professional educational institutions has also increased significantly and amounted to 42.5 by 2022 %
In the medium term, Turkmenistan will continue to implement the National Action Plan on Gender Equality in Turkmenistan for 2021-2025 in seven strategic directions:
1) strengthening and improving the legislative framework in order to achieve gender equality;
2) ensuring gender-oriented health protection;
3) promoting equal access to education;
4) countering gender-based violence against women and girls;
5) economic empowerment of women and girls;
6) increasing the engagement of women at all levels, including in the political and public spheres;
7) enhancing institutional mechanisms to support gender equality. ///nCa, 11 August 2023
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