Gender equality continues to be a major priority for the Government, President of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, said on Wednesday afternoon receiving from the Commissioner for Gender Equality, Josie Christodoulou, the Report of her Office for the period March-December 2023. On her part, Christodoulou noted that gender mainstreaming across all Ministries and Deputy Ministries accelerates reaching the goal of substantive equality between women and men.
The President stressed that gender equality “continues to be our major priority,” adding that “there is a long way to go, more work needs to be done.” “I am particularly pleased because we are seeing results, and it is precisely because these results are there that we must continue,” he noted.
President Christodoulides pointed out that the submission of the Report is not a formal procedure envisaged through the relevant regulations, noting that the Report will be studied by the Secretariat for Monitoring the Government’s work “to identify where there are problems and distortions and where we clearly need to move faster so that all of this can be incorporated into the Government’s annual planning for 2025.”
Handing over the report to President Christodoulides, the Commissioner said, among other things, that in combination with the Government’s policies and actions regarding the reconciliation of work and family life, the bigger number of women in the Council of Ministers, the measures that exist in education, the fight to combat violence against women through these holistic approaches, “I believe that we are accelerating our efforts for equality between women and men.”
At the same time, she informed the President that Cyprus has been upgraded this year by the European Institute for Gender Equality to 20th place.
“We still have a long way to go, but with the way we are working, by mainstreaming the gender dimension in all Ministries and Deputy Ministries, I believe that we are getting closer to reaching our goal, which is substantive equality between women and men,” Christodoulou concluded.
Deputy Minister to the President, Irene Piki was also present at the meeting.
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Source: CNA
