Prague, Nov 25 (CTK) – A new Czech government campaign called This Is Equality!, which aims to promote women and men’s equal position, was presented by outgoing Human Rights Minister Jiri Dienstbier and Lucia Zachariasova, head of the government equality department, on Friday.
Friday was International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
“The awareness of equality of women and men is still relatively low in the Czech Republic. Statistics surprise people. Women earn an average of about 22 percent less than men and Czech female seniors are threatened with poverty most of all in Europe,” Dienstbier said.
He said “the public have entirely distorted notions of the number of rape cases. They believe that it concerns dozens to hundreds of women annually, but it is up to 10,000 in reality.”
In its poicy statement, the government pledged to be pushing for the principle of equality, Dientstbier said.
The government promised to strive for suppressing violence and for helping people harmonise their work and privacy.
A part of the campaign on domestic violence will focus on its witnesses, or friends, colleagues, relatives and neighbours and it will teach them to discern a dangerous situation and help the victims.
Another part of the campaign focuses on small children’s parents and on the future fathers and mothers. It wants to support them in “choosing other than established patterns,” Dienstbier said.
The Government Office will use money from the Norway Grants in implementing the campaign.
Information on the campaign will be available at rovnost.vlada.cz and on social networks as well.
Leaflets and posters will be displayed in the means of mass transport and the public Czech Television will broadcast spots.
The campaign will have a logo featuring the figures of a man and a woman bound by a sign of equation, Zachariasova said.
“Equality benefits the whole society,” she said.
Branislava Marvanova Vargova, from the Rosa organisation helping victims, said surveys have shown that one fifth of women experienced violence in life.
She said attacks by a partner or violence in the family were experienced by 4 percent of women last year and that children were often present.
International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women will continue until December 10, which is Human Rights Day.
