National Women’s Forum of Kyrgyzstan. Day 2.
March 3, 2015, 06:00National Women’s Forum of Kyrgyzstan held in Bishkek, March 2-3, 2015. More than 1200 participants from all oblasts and Bishkek attended the forum including women activists, veterans of the women's movement, women-parliamentarians of village councils and country parliament, heads of village councils, ministers, and representatives of the women civic networks. Prominent statesmen and public figures of the Kyrgyz Republic, media leaders and experts also attended the forum. It is important to note that this is first National Women’s Forum uniting large number of women participants in the history of the independent country. The event focused on three important dates: 90th anniversary of the women's movement in Kyrgyzstan, 20th anniversary since the World Women's Forum in Beijing was held, 15th anniversary of the 1325 Resolution of the UN Security Council to recognize the value of women in peacekeeping, peacemaking and post-conflict reconstruction. Themes of the five conferences were “Role and participation of women in political processes”, “New challenges and economic empowerment of women”, “Access to justice: right to effective protection tools and fair trial”, “Women’s and girls’ health”, “Education is a responsibility for development”. During the second day of the forum, two sessions were discussed in a solemn environment at the T. Satylganov State Philharmonic which summarized all proposals, initiatives, and programs discussed from five conferences. Participants voiced ideas on the ongoing gender development strategy and state policy development for the period of after 2015. The country did not have these challenges twenty years ago: negative impact of climate change on working life as a whole, including women; migration and radicalization of certain women’s groups going even with their children to the wars in other countries. Question of 60,000 children not attending schools were put for wider public discussion. Combatting violence against children and women mechanism proposed by the government received big response in society and attention was discussed during the Forum. Women, all progressive community, educated people are closely watching the passage of the reproductive health law in the Parliament. On the eve of the parliamentary elections, women's community relies on 30% of women's representation in the next parliament. Globally, by 2030, the percentage of men and women in the main legislative bodies of all countries should reach 50%-50%. Forum was an excellent platform for raising girls and young women’s voices. They are promising voters whose interests and concerns will be shown in full force in the next five years.