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The material posted here was provided to the Division for the 
Advancement of Women by the Government in response to a note 
verbale. It is being made available in electronic format in
the form received. In cases where it was not possible at this 
time to reproduce charts and tables supplied, these can be 
obtained by contacting the Division for the Advancement of 
Women directly.
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                                       APPROVED
                                       by Resolution No. 1299
                                       of 8 November 1996
                                       of the Government of the
                                       Republic of Lithuania

     ACTION PLAN OF ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN OF LITHUANIA


1. GENERAL PROVISIONS

Upon preparation to the United Nations IV World Conference on
Women
Issues, the situation of women of Lithuania was evaluated. The
major problems
were identified as follows.

Protection of the human rights of women: the society does not
perceive women's rights as human rights, lack of legal
knowledge; absence of a mechanism responsible for controlling
the observance of the constitutional principle of equality; the
society pursues the opinion that a woman who raises a child, is
not a full-fledged member of social and political life and is
not a competent worker.

Women's economic-social status: During the period of transition
into a market economy, the gap between opportunities for men
and women to participate in economic activities and to ensure a
source of income is constantly growing. The majority of the
poorest society stratum consists of women. Their pay is, on
average, 1.4 times less than men's, it is harder for them to
find a job; women's standard of living is lower than men's;
discrimination in the family and work market; insufficient
participation of women in discussing economic and social
issues. Women in rural areas are now facing an extremely severe
economic and social situation. They are unemployed,
consequently, they do not enjoy social guarantees. Women hardly
ever participate in discussing issues on the use of funds
collected from taxes and the use of foreign loans as well as
issues on the guarantee granting, also in distributing
technical assistance received from foreign states and
international and financial organisations.

Women and environmental protection: the society is quite
indifferent to environmental protection and nature preservation
issues, lack of information on environmental situation in
concrete residence areas and its impact upon health of the
residents, in particular of women and children; few women
participate in adopting decisions on environmental issues;
public women organisations do not pay sufficient interest and
attention to environmental issues.

Women's health, family planning: unsatisfactory women's health,
high mortality among infants and women in childbirth; a lot of
infertile families; the public lacks information on family
planning methods and contraception, thus still high
number of abortions; increase in number of people ill with
sexually transmitted diseases, among them with AIDS.

Woman and education: education of Lithuanian women of
employable age is on average higher than men's, they constitute
the majority of students. However, their intellectual and
creative potential is employed insufficiently; few women take
part in academic activities and in administration of education
and science systems; low salaries of teachers, the most of
which are women; lack of research on gender differences in
education and science systems; there still exists
discrimination in enrolment at high and higher education
schools.

Women in politics and public administration: democratic reforms
have taken place in the society, however, women issues were not
related to the democracy. Low participation of women in
politics and public administration indicates that the democracy
is not yet ensured. There are no programs encouraging
sustainable seek for gender balance in public administration.

Harassment and violence against women and girls: harassment and
violence have widely spread in the society and family. Women
suffer from this most. However, the society does not comprehend
the level of violence against women, and is prejudiced against
the victims of violence; there are no public programmes on
elimination and prevention of violence against women;
unsatisfactory training of officers to fight violence against
women; there are neither shelters nor essential help system for
victims of violence.

Women and the media: the media makes a great impact upon the
politics of the country as well as the mind, outlook and
behaviour of people. However, a woman's image formed by the
media is either stereotypical or negative; insufficient
influence by women journalists to the media; often violations
of journalism ethics.

System of statistics and gender differences: data of
statistical and social research is used in adopting political,
economical and social decisions. In case of insufficient
information on gender differences, gender insensitive or even
discriminating decisions might be adopted. The data basis of
statistical system is not sufficient in Lithuania; the data
collecting methods are not efficient enough; a lot of prepared
statistical and social research programmes are lacking in
funds.

II. ACTION PLAN

1. PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF WOMEN

Main objectives:

- to achieve the society's comprehension that rights of women
are universal human rights;
- draw up laws and create a mechanism of their implementation
and control, which shall guarantee the observance of the
principle of equal rights and opportunities for men and women;

- to achieve equal rights for women and men in the society and
family.

Guidelines:

- to analyse and perfect laws of Lithuania in accordance with
the constitutional principle of gender equality;

- submit proposals on implementation of the principle of equal
rights and opportunities for men and women;

- to perform analysis of all international conventions and
declarations on women and human rights, to identify what
correlation to them carry laws of Lithuania, and to prepare
them for ratification;

- to draw up educational programmes on human rights with a
particular emphasis on women's rights, for training of
teachers, police officers, lawyers, civil servants, journalists
and other specialists as well as in raising their
qualification; introduce or expand courses on human rights at
secondary schools;

- to seek that harassment and violence against women shall be
treated as violations of human rights;

- enlighten the public by issuing, circulating and popularising
international documents on human rights and laws of the
Republic of Lithuania.

2. WOMEN'S ECONOMIC-SOCIAL STATUS

Main objective:

- to create a legal basis and economical mechanisms compliant
with the conditions of market economy, which shall guarantee
equal rights for women and men both in economic activities and
the family.

Guidelines:

I. To ensure the participation of women in adopting economic
and social decisions by including women into commissions and
task forces which create perspectives of Lithuania's economic
and social development and help distribute assistance received
from foreign states and international and financial
organisations.

II. To review the system of social assistance:
- to improve the procedure and way of providing social benefits
for the most socially-vulnerable and indigent families;

- to improve and expand the network of pre-school children
education institutions, to draft and to implement programmes of
after-school children's education

III. To guarantee protection of property rights in the family:

- to establish a more favourable to women legal mechanism for
the distribution of property in the family; to assure by
adopting the new "Family and Marriage Code" the inviolability
of women's and children's rights;

- to legalise pre-nuptial agreements between the spouses and to
establish the registration system of said treaties;

- to establish an effective mechanism of claims for recovery of
alimony payments.

IV. To expand the sources of women income:

- to abolish gender discrimination in the labour market; to
apply widely criteria that assure the selection of employees
according to their qualification only; to take measures that
advertisements about job vacancies should include no
indications of gender;

- to create conditions for mothers and fathers to combine
career and family responsibilities (a part-time job, flexible
working hours, and others);

- to establish requalification system for women; to create
special training programmes for women who have raised children
and are coming back to the labour market;

- to establish and implement training and employment programme
for disabled women

V. To improve the situation of women in rural areas:

- to encourage women in rural areas to be engaged in business
activities; to draft special small- and medium-scale business
and household training programmes;

- to carry out extensive research on the economic, legal and
social situation of women in rural areas;

- to establish a legal mechanism that will provide social
guarantees for women engaged in private farms;
- to use the opportunities provided by the media to improve
women's status;

- to seek a greater influence of women journalists in forming
the media's policy.

Guidelines:

- to seek for an objective depiction of the modern woman by the
media, and representation of problems of equal rights and
opportunities;

- to seek that much more women should be members of the media's
editorial bodies and boards; to provide them with conditions to
widen their professional skills and knowledge;

- to pay more attention to issues of human rights and
professional ethics in preparation of journalists;

- to specify measures prohibiting the promotion of violence
against women, pornography, advertising of prostitution, and
the humiliation of women and their dignity.

9. SYSTEM OF STATISTICS AND GENDER DIFFERENCES

Main objectives:

- to provide politicians and decision-makers with objective
information on differences between women and men:

- to inform the society about gender differences.

Guidelines:

- to establish data banks on women's and men's status, to
analyse it;

- to improve methods of data collection by introducing a gender
factor in all sectors;

- to assess women's and men's contribution to different spheres
of social and economical development;

- to regularly inform politicians, officials and the society on
the current situation and changes;

- to publish the results of statistical and social research
disclosing gender differences.