On March 21, 2018, the Government of the Republic of Moldova approved the National Programme to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security for 2018-2021 and the National Action Plan regarding the implementation of the programme. For the past three years, a series of dialogues, roundtables and meetings have been held to increase the level of awareness of public authorities’ representatives and civil society with the provisions of Resolution 1325. Civil servants, women deputies, members of the Common Platform of Dialogue in the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova, activists in the field of gender equality, national and international experts attended these events and have created an appropriate framework to initiate the elaboration of the National Program. The NAP is primarily focused on women’s participation in the security and defense sectors and even outlines 8 barriers that reduce the representation for women’s participation in these sectors thus making it less inclusive.
Moldova has not been involved in any recent conflict although there have been tensions with Ukraine over the Transnistrian territory and the Dniester river. Moldova is one of the primary source countries for women subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour throughout Europe. Moldova ranks 30 out of 144 countries in the 2017 Global Gender Gap Index (GGI) and acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1994. Moldova signed the Arms Trade treaty (ATT) on 10 September 2015 and ratified it on September 28th, 2015.
The inaugural NAP strengthens opportunities for local women civil society involvement at all stages of the NAP, including development, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. The inclusion of civil society is even mentioned in one objectives of the NAP which is objective 6 and states, “Strengthening the transparency and involvement of the civil society in the decisions taken by the security and defense system.” There is not a specific budget outlined in the NAP, although, throughout the implementation stages, the funding will come from the annually approved allocations of the responsibly authority or institution’s budget. However, gaps remain in other key areas such as disarmament, as it still is not mentioned or referenced in the NAP.
Since the adoption of the NAP, the government of the Republic of Moldova reported that the following activities have been undertaken:
- All institutions concerned developed institutional action plans;
- During the period concerned, the authorities responsible for implementation have developed and entered into Agreements of Collaboration with the associative sector in the realm of gender equality and strengthening women’s role in the security sector;
- The authorities initiated internal reviews of gender equality perceptions and women’s working conditions within the divisions;
- The institutions responsible for implementation started to amend and supplement the normative acts regulating the related fields of work in order to eliminate discrimination, sexual harassment and gender-based violence;
- The authorities started to amend and/or develop Guidelines and Internal Regulations, in line with the principle of gender equality, in order to implement the actions of the Plan.