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34 I Central Europe bne April 2019
However, as the backlash against the planned reforms threatened President Vladimir Putin’s popularity ratings, the president – who had kept his distance from the changes – eventually stepped in to scale them back. In a televised address to the nation, Putin cut back the retire- ment age increase for women by eight years from the current 55 to 63, scaling it back to 60 years. He also introduced a number of other compensatory measures that were immediately picked up by the cabinet and the parliament.
"Our country has a special, careful atti- tude towards women ... we understand that they not only have work at their main place of employment, but also usu- ally have the carry the household, care for the family, raise children, and worry about grandchildren,” Putin said in the address. “The retirement age for women should not increase more than for men.”
Kazakhstan faced similar problems overhauling its pension system a few years earlier. In a rare instance of mass public mobilisation in the authoritarian Central Asian state, opponents to the reforms, which included plans to bring the retirement age for women into line with that for men, gathered thousands of signatures against the changes. The country’s youthful labour and social protection minister, Serik Abdenov, became a national figure of fun after
failing to explain the reforms at a public meeting, telling attendees: "You have
to work and work... because, esteemed fellow countrymen, because, because...” Abdenov was eventually sacked as Presi- dent Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered the government to rethink the reforms.
There were also issues with reforms
in other areas, notably sexual harass- ment in the workplace. Among the 35 countries that introduced sexual harass- ment laws protecting women at work were several from the CEE/CIS region. However, this was an area where the leg- islation was not backed up by criminal penalties. Five countries including Geor- gia and Moldova “introduced sexual harassment laws, but did not provide for either criminal penalties or civil reme- dies for the violation of these laws,” says the report. “In Georgia, for example, the 2010 Gender Equality Act defines sexual harassment and establishes that it is not allowed, but there is no criminal penalty for sexual harassment nor can a victim sue for a civil remedy.”
Sectors off limits
Restrictions on women working in certain sectors or jobs, usually those deemed physically demanding or dangerous,
are a hangover from the communist
era in several countries in the CEE/CIS region. During the survey period, a total of 22 countries removed restrictions on
women’s work, reducing the likelihood that women are kept out of working in certain sectors of the economy.
Among them were Bulgaria, Croatia and Poland, which removed all job restric- tions on women, while other countries removed restrictions on women working in specific industries, including the Czech Republic (mining), Mongolia (construction, energy, manufacturing, mining, transportation and water) and Slovenia (construction). “Several of these reforms were motivated by the improved use of technology in these industries,” says the report.
It singles out the example of bus drivers in Kazakhstan, a job previously barred to women, but where the situation
has changed due to legislative reforms supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in partnership with the govern- ment and a public transport operator
in Almaty. “Previously, women could not get bus driving licences because a prerequisite was having a heavy goods licence with one year of experience driv- ing a heavy goods vehicle. But women were not legally allowed to drive heavy goods vehicles, and therefore could not also drive buses,” explains the report. “Coordinated efforts such as these have contributed to narrowing the legal gen- der gap over the last ten years.”
Nearly all the countries of Eastern Europe made progress in improving the rule of law
bne IntelliNews
Nearly all the countries of Eastern Europe made progress in improv- ing the rule of law in 2018, according to the World Justice Project annual ranking “Rule of law index 2019”, but drilling into the subfactors big disparities persist.
www.bne.eu
The top performer from the 13 countries surveyed in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region was the progressive small republic of Georgia that kept its score unchanged at 0.61 and remained ranked at 41st place overall out of 126 counties surveyed.
The biggest improver in the region was Russia which moved up six places to
an overall rank of 88 with a score of 0.47 but it remained near the bottom of its group. Neighbouring Ukraine also moved up four places to an overall rank of 77 place with a score of 0.5 that puts