![Ekaterina Lakhova: "Economy will develop, when culture and spirituality will go ahead"](/upload2/cbig/files/2010/Mar/Ekaterina-Lakhova-Ekonomika-budet-dvigatsya-tolko-togda-kogda-kultura-i-dukhovnost-budut-shagat-vperedi19.jpg "Ekaterina Lakhova: "Economy will develop, when culture and spirituality will go ahead"")
Interviewed by Vladimir Nesterov, Especially for Vestnik Kavkaza
Ekaterina Lakhova, chairman of the Women's Union of Russia, member of the Federation Council committee on the federal structure, regional policy, local government and northern affairs is a guest of Vestnik Kavkaza on the eve of International Women's Day
- This year, the Union of Women of Russia celebrates its 25th anniversary, which is always a good reason to sum up what has been done. In your opinion, how much have Russian women changed during this time? And what are the most outstanding achievements that you can tell us about?
- Actually this is good that you brought up the topic of the Union of Russian Women, because the Union of Russian Women is the legal successor of the Committee of Soviet Women. The Committee of Soviet Women was very famous formerly in the world. And I must say that it was created as the Women's Anti-Fascist Committee in 1941.The famous aviatress Grizodubova headed the committee. And then it was renamed the Committee of Soviet Women after the victory in 1945 And it played an important role in the recovery, in creating peace both outside as well as inside the country. That time women had a very active civil will.
- During the war, many men had died, and the majority of those who came back, were disabled…
- The rear was greatly facilitated by women and children. When the Soviet Union collapsed, being in the Committee of Soviet Women we were afraid that our organization would not exist anymore. Actually, at the Soviet period it was different political system, one ruling party. And the party had its drive belts, they were veterans organizations, youth organization - Komsomol, women's organizations, trade unions. When the Union collapsed, the Committee of Soviet Women urgently gathered all the regional offices. The women signed the contract, agreement and created the Women's Union of Russia, which became the legal successor of the Soviet structure.
Russia, by the way, became the legal successor of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Committee of Soviet Women was among the initiators of the convention.
Therefore, we celebrate the 25 –year anniversary this year, and if the previous Committee had existed it would have turned 75 years next year
Valentina Tereshkova, who headed the Soviet Women's Committee for 19 years, and made a great contribution to the development of the women's movement at that time. And in 1993, the Women's Union of Russia initiated two amendments to the Constitution. For example, there was article 19 about equal rights, equal freedoms and opportunities for men and women. Because men and women have equal rights, but the right to implement their rights for women is different, because a woman has to give birth to first, second, third child, but maybe in the future she would like to realize herself professionally. And if this woman is a single mother with a child, that means public policy must be adopted to the fact that rights should be realized equally
And the second amendment, which we have in the old Constitution, for example, was a maternal and child health security. We have achieved security of motherhood, fatherhood and childhood. Because we believe that a strong family, a stable family is the family where there are mom and dad, and that fathers should also take quite an impressive part in the upbringing of their children.
When our president announced the TRP to be implemented, for example, I was delighted. I immediately thought about the way my grandson would perform pull-ups. He can do push-ups, but pull-ups can be a problem
Participation of men in the education of their sons, who will subsequently defend their country, and education of girls is also very important. That is why; it is a victory for us.A lot of initiatives have been presented from non-governmental organizations, which tried to pass through the laws that we passed in the 1990s. For example, the Family Code was taken by our group. The faction Women of Russia is a world-scale precedent , in my opinion, which no one in the world will never repeat again, even probably in Russia, a women's group in the parliament cannot be repeated. And we did it in 1993, a women’s faction existed during the most difficult period of transition
- The Women of Russia has branches in almost every region of our country. Are there branches in Crimea and Sevastopol?
- There are, but they are not yet registered. But the Crimean organization, which is headed by Valentina Tumanova, has already received a registration number and presented us with the documents to become a member of our organization. We approved the creation of this organization.
In Sevastopol, there is a women's organization, and we have already been there, and made contract agreement on social partnership with the head of Sevastopol Sergey Ivanovich Menyailo. Our organization regularly enters into such agreements with the governors. The first agreements were made with the Altai region, the Kursk region, the Kaliningrad region, the Kirov region and a number of regions with which we have signed agreements on social partnership.
Of course, I was struck by the woman in Crimea and Sevastopol. We have a project in the Union of Russian Women, which is civic engagement of our women's organizations. Last year we trained 85 women from Crimea and Sevastopol, who came to us, we taught them, talked to them, shared experiences. We brought representatives of our regional offices, who explain to Crimeans they way we are working from the Altai region, from Chuvashia, from Chelyabinsk Sevastopol, so the Crimean organization can quickly integrate into our social organization. But they themselves are doing a very good job.
Recently we opened the exhibition “Crimea in my heart” or as we call it “Crimean Spring” in the gallery of the Women's Union of Russia, just before the 8-th of March. We invited our senators Olga Kovitidi and Olga Timofeeva. I believe that we, as a public organization, were among the first who celebrate this holiday. It was pleasant to see the warmth present in those pictures.
- A branch of Women of Russia, of course, is also represented in the republics of the Russian Caucasus. Traditionally, it is assumed that a woman in the Russian Caucasus, first of all is homemaker, wife and mother... How active are the representatives of these offices, and what issues do they seek to solve?
- I want to say that women homemakers are everywhere. in the south it is presented in larger scale. In the Caucasus, women are very strong and wise. In Ossetia, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia ... Our most active branches are in the Stavropol Territory and South Ossetia. They carry out activities, which are associated with family, traditions and culture.
Today there is a women's NGO Mother Russia, which is headed by Valentina Petrenko. The organization began to work actively in the Caucasus, Ingushetia, Chechnya. Women came from Chechnya, Ingushetia, declaring a desire to join our organization. We do not mind. . We do not try, you know, somehow in artificial way to push from the top to create our organization. If you are ready, then welcome
The most important thing is that in many respects the organization's work depends on the people. If a person is not indifferent, does not use a public organization to achieve some of his political objectives, and really loves it, is involved in the structure, then everything will work.
- Everything concerning political decisions, economic decisions, in my understanding, should go through the outlook of a man, through the family. Only then can we get some effect.
In the early 2000s we passed a bill on distributing authority, and everything concerning the family was delegated to the regional level. Politics at the regional level is greatly dependent on the how the government understands the problem, how the governor works in that direction. In the 1990s we were working with scientists in the Samara Oblast on a model for support and assistance for families. When I get ill, I do not go to the healthcare directorate of the Healthcare Ministry, I go to a polyclinic or call a doctor. However, in many families there are social diseases that need treating. In order to treat them, we need centers that would help.
Low-income families are one support, aid; alcoholic families are a different one. There are families with normal material income, and children run from a family and skip school, take drugs, commit crimes. Violence in a family, tuberculosis in a family. There are different problems.
One family stuck in my memory. Being legless, a woman gave birth. The husband is ill. Such a family needs support. That is why a network of centers is needed that would help families constantly, not by chance, to treat social illnesses, provide social services that should be free.
The structure of the administration of the Samara Oblast had a department for protection of the family, maternity and childhood. Later on, they created a ministry, it is now called the Ministry for Social, Demographic and Family Policy.
The Kaluga Oblast created a Ministry for Family, Demography and Social Policy.
Family problems were separated out into a department. A department for families was formed in the Kursk Oblast. They tried to highlight it in the Bryansk Oblast.
But what matters is not just the name, but the creation of a system, to make it work every day.
A public organization, our women’s councils, may help solve the problem. For example, there are women’s councils that work at a village level in a rural district or throughout the district itself. The public organization draws attention to problems the government can actually solve. It needs to join the dialogue. Business can be engaged. For example, we have the Novokuznetsk Metallurgy Factory, Surgutneftegaz, the Magnitogorsk Factory. They are large, rich enterprises, they created women’s councils. Awomen’s council takes an active part in protecting the rights of women, the rights to maternity in making employment contracts.
The Women’s Union of Russia has recently trained the heads of villages. 25 heads of villages arrived from seven regions. We were teaching them the law, how to make concrete decisions. They were sitting mouths agape. We figured that there was a very big gap in staff training at this level. We need to raise the civil activeness of people, manage to organize them, all that without money. The lower you go at the municipal level, the less money there is.
We, for instance, have no law for children of war, although it is lobbied at the federal level. But as long as we have not fulfilled our obligations to veterans of the Great Patriotic War, it will be impossible to do. We need to fulfill our obligations that no one fulfilled in the 1950-1980s and that have accumulated at first.
But part of the regions adopts such laws via the regional law. We say “A close-knit family is a stable state”, but all families are different. We think that the attitude towards families with many children should change. This is also colossal work, it is honorable, what matters is not talks about the amount, but about the upbringing, how children are brought up, what the quality of the upbringing is. But, unfortunately, there are only 2.5-3% of such families in Russia. If we take the south, there are a few more such families, somewhere up to 6%, but it is still a low percentage. Yet, about 30% are incomplete families, where a single mother (less often a single father) raises a child. Such families need support too. There are families with disabled children, usually in such families (about 60% of cases) husbands abandon them, and the mother raises the child alone.
- Let’s talk about the problem in more detail. It appears that women’s unions exist in Russia and all over the world. I have never heard about a men’s union, to say the least. There probably are some men’s clubs, but no unions. Maybe it means that gender discrimination exists? What are the most peculiar problems for Russia?
- You have made a very correct observation, we are talking about prevention of the violation of men’s rights. In the 1990s, we ratified the 154th convention on equal gender family obligations. It even happens that a man could get parental leave, sometimes it happens in a family, a mother, for example…
- You remember the case when a man filed a bid for a maternity benefit.
- He did win! I presented the bill myself. The benefit is called maternal, but it is a family benefit, the man, the father, has a right to it. But we are saying that if a father has the need to take leave to care for a child, he has such a right too. They say that there are about 5% of such cases, there used to be 2%.
- I even know families where the father gets parental leave, and the mother continues to work.
- In the Altay Territory, our organization headed by Nadezhda is very strong. In the early 2000s, a men’s crisis center appeared there. (We have a crisis center for women. There are about 40 of them in the RF, but they were initiated by women’s organizations). The crisis center for men in the Altai Territory is unique in Russia. It works very actively, because women adapt socially to different extreme situations better than men. Biologically, a woman is more enduring and robust.
And so, in the Altai Territory, the regional law sets a Fathers’ Day. It serves to raise the status of fatherhood, the family, where the best fathers, both dads and moms, and where the father brings a child up alone. They created councils of fathers at city and district levels, they have a regional council now, they have the fathers’ council of Governor Karlin. When Karlin gathers a hall, where 300 fathers sit and discuss problems association with strengthening the family, it is very important.
The Lipetsk, Ulyanovsk, Vologda and Volgograd Oblasts made use of the experience. About 12 regions have adopted laws and mark the days. But all days are different.
The Women’s Union of Russia encouraged men and public organizations to create the All-Russian Fathers’ Council. In 2008, we, the Women’s Union of Russia, held the first forum of fathers. We invited them from different regions using our officers, we listened and cried when the fathers were describing the way they were engaged in upbringing, how they were inviting mothers from poor families, how they were bringing them up. Councils of fathers at schools, nurseries, city councils… Priests, Orthodox nuns work very well. Women’s councils have very intensive contacts with them.
The number of fathers’ councils has increased today. State Duma member Alexander Sedyakin proposed an initiative on the need for a federal Fathers’ Day. We joined in, our Women’s Council of Russia hosted a round-table conference before February 20, large families, fathers arrived from Tatarstan, Krasnoyarsk, the ones who partook in the summer campaign, arrived on motorcycles from Vladivostok. It was not our event, but I was joyful that we were working in unison.
- I listen to you and, as a man, I am very pleased to hear that our women in Russia are not only working on their own rights, although it does seem that there are problems, as they say, a huge amount of concerns, and yet, nonetheless, the problems of men. I had an opportunity to talk with European women’s organizations. I would say that they are of a very feministic alignment. In particular, when you enter their office, there is not a single man nearby. Moreover, their drivers are women. I suppose we have nothing of that kind in our Russian union.
- The word “feminism” is perceived as an offensive word in our, Russian, society. Feminism is the protection of women’s rights, even men seem to be engaged in it. European feminism is a different story, there is American feminism. American feminism takes it to an absurd level. If, God forbid, you open a door or hand a coat, or look at a women, you would be…
- I had the following experience: I opened the door for a student from Spain, they were doing an internship at our MSU, the last time we were leaving the lectures, she ran and opened the door for me because of total equality.
- The nightmare! Horror!.. An international conference attended by 38,000 women was held in Beijing 20 years ago. Can you imagine what boisterous discussions they had. They proposed 12 trends where women’s rights were violated in the sectors of healthcare, education, employment of women, violence against women, mass media and women…
I think that concerning, for example, the reduction of maternity and the child mortality rate, we have achieved positive results over the years. Such a trend as discrimination in the sector of salaries is the only one where women struggle all over the world. The difference in payments for the very same labour here in Russia is about 30-40%, it is about 10-15% in Europe and in developed sates. Nonetheless, it is there.
Some say we need an ombudsman for women. I am fine with that, but many years need to pass before our population develops the legal skills.
- There appears to be some surveillance organ. When the ombudsman for children, for example, or a human rights ombudsman visits some place, all the people there gather and get very disciplined.
- Even solving problem he raises requires a well-functioning judicial system. Unfortunately, our citizens are not fully aware of their rights, or the technology for protection of their rights. One human rights ombudsman cannot protect the rights of women. If you want to protect rights, you need to know your rights and opportunities, know how to protect them. So far, we have no word “discrimination” in a single federal law. An attempt to bring it in was very difficult for us. But there is an international document we ratified: the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. And the Constitution says that, if we ratify the international document, we need to use the formulation according to it, and the judicial system should use the formulation. Unfortunately, this is not always done.
