Women's Day in Azerbaijan...

Baku/08.03.23/Turan: Today, March 8 is International Women's Day which was established at the Second International Conference of Socialists held in Copenhagen in 1910 at the suggestion of Clara Zetkin. This day was established as a day of solidarity of women in the struggle for socio-political and economic equality and for their rights. In many countries of the world, March 8 is celebrated as the Day of working women. This holiday has been regularly celebrated in Azerbaijan since 1917.

What is the status of women in Azerbaijan?

The chairman of the Women's Society "For Rational Development" Shahla Ismail talked about this in the "Difficult question" program. According to her, there is a misconception that women's rights issues are an easy topic, although this is far from the case.

"They are often associated with corruption, poor governance, and official arbitrariness on the ground," she said.  Shahla Ismail noted that the issue of women's rights has always been relevant in Azerbaijan.

"If there are problems with human rights in the country, then women's rights are an integral part of these problems. It is often asked - why do you separate the problem of women's rights from the problem of human rights? But if human rights are violated on the basis of gender or gender, that is, if women's rights are violated, then it should be a violation of their rights," she said, stressing that there are many problems and offenses in this area. At the same time, she noted that there are many achievements.

"Thus, the share of female teachers in the field of education and health exceeds the share of men. But we don't want quantity, we want quality. We want to appoint women to responsible, senior positions. We want to see women in the positions of ministers, heads of committees, heads of executive power. There are deputy heads of Executive Power, but they are mainly deputies for humanitarian or social issues. But we don't want assignments on the order. We want real career opportunities for women," the activist said.

She also noted that women want to achieve gender balance in the family in order to make a career. Among the obstacles in this direction there are also economic problems.

"For example, since the quality of public pre-school educational institutions leaves much to be desired, and private ones are too expensive, most women are forced to give up work, career growth," she stressed.

A serious problem, according to her, "are patriarchal relationships, the carriers of which, oddly enough, are no less women themselves."