Question 2:

You’ve mentioned the UN Concluding observations on the situation of women in Monaco. What’s your perspective on that document?
Janna:
The specialised UN Committee deals with the issue of equality, and produces Concluding observations raising concerns and proposing positive actions. Certain social inequalities between men and women are related to our biological reality. The employer discriminates women, since there is still an expectation that a woman will dedicate a substantial part of her thoughts and time to kids, and in many cases this is true. Therefore, the affirmative action needs not only a recognition of a formal equality, but also taking into account the time a woman invests into her family, thus liberating substantial time for the partner working outside the family. The very fact of giving birth out of your own body and breastfeeding often leads to a greater psychological attachment, and our legal practices should accept this.
The contemporary decline of the institution of marriage leads to the fact that women prioritising kids become more vulnerable. The legal system must wisely put itself into this context, providing increased guarantees to a woman-mother, especially in a family without marriage.
Elena:
Proclaiming equal rights between men and women is nonsensical without equal respective rights at home. We should not neglect the problems existing and persisting in the core part of our society, i.e. in our classic, traditional families, which are the basic cell of human existence. I define classic families as those built on the relations between men and women, living together and having or willing to have children.
This will be the major priority of Eglex initiatives: discussion on rights and opportunities of men and women in family relationships, social roles of men and women in fatherhood and motherhood, their fair and recognised contribution and, therefore, fair opportunities for self-realisation at and outside home.

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