The Gender Equality Discourse in Southeast Europe
The Gender Equality Discourse in Southeast Europe

Summary/Abstract: Gender equality as a political and legal principle has been put forward within the modern constitutional systems in Southeast Europe. Implementing this principle also includes introducing anti-discrimination laws and changing legal, social and political practices in the respective countries. By adopting different directives and politics, the European Union has emphasised the importance of gender equality in the EU. Additionally, this has become one of the political criteria for the countries that want to become EU member states. Beside the EU, the Council of Europe has adopted a Recommendation on the Protection of Women against Violence (2002) and the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (2011), the so-called Istanbul Convention. It came into force on 1 August 2014 and is a binding legal document for the countries that ratified it. Moreover, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has developed comprehensive case law directly or indirectly related to gender equality (e.g. prohibition of torture and/or inhuman behaviour; prohibition of discrimination). In the Council of Europe member states, there still is a gap between the social context and the normative sphere. Nevertheless, the ECHR in 2012 clearly stated that references to traditions, general assumptions or prevailing social attitudes are insufficient justification for a difference in a treatment on grounds of gender setting the way of how we should interpret and implement conventions and recommendations adopted by the Council of Europe.

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