News from Womens's Network

During 2004 UBC member cities in four countries join European Union. They have the advantage of belonging to UBC network together with countries who already have some experiences to share in many fields. How to promote equality between men and women in their administrations is one. The Amsterdam Treaty, together with other treaties and papers supported development which can be seen in EU partner cities.

UBC Women's Network has devoted this year to enlighten and map the situation of equal opportunities, rights, freedoms and responsibilities in UBC member cities. It turned out that EU membership evidently had promoted municipal equality. Some cities can present an example of good practices in realizing goals which affect the municipality's operations and service for citizens as well as the employees. Some cities have included their statements and equality plans on their homepages or, like Vaxjo, has translated their programs to other languages. Vaxjo City Commissioner is chairman of the gender equality committee with 20 years long traditions. Many cities have politically appointed committees working for gender equality and some of them have special budgets and employed personnel.

Important issues during 2004 for the Women's Network are:

• to promote standards and norms for municipalities for combating violence in families and trafficking in human beings,
• to promote women's participation in decision-making bodies within UBC and the member cities.

It is important to remember that the participation of women in UBC is connected to women's positions in their cities and in many cases women still are underrepresented in higher decision-making bodies.

In 2004 Women's Network intends to have 3 meetings and also 3 national meetings. The first network meeting will be held on 14 August 2004 in connection to the 10^th Anniversary Seminar of the Nordic Forum in Turku.