Population of women: 2 775 000/ 5 396 168 Life expectancy of women/men at birth: 78.2 / 70.4 Unemployment of women/men: 12.5/ 9.8
Adult economic activity rates of women/men: 50.5/ 67.7 Average age of first marriage for women/men: 26/28 Number of divorces per year: 12,174 Source: The Slovak Statistical Office, 2006, 2007
last updated 20 May 2008
Contributed by: Author: Sylvia Kralova, Fenestra
Domestic Violence
The State Policy on Domestic Violence
In 2004, the Slovak government passed the National Strategy for Prevention and Elimination of Violence against Women and in Families. As it is clear from its title, the document does not specifically address elimination of violence against women, but relates it to the issue of violence in families, including different target groups such as children and elderly people. Therefore, the strategy does not acknowledge the specifics of violence against women as gender based violence requiring specific approaches and measures.
A year later, the government passed the National Action Plan for Prevention and Elimination of Violence against Women for years 2005-2008. Nevertheless, the government has not allocated any funds for its activities or for the activities of its coordinating body, the Government Council for Crime Prevention Expert Group on Prevention and Elimination of Violence against Women and in Families. Thus, it is not surprising that the individual ministries have carried out many of the NAP activities only formally.
It can be therefore concluded that the Slovak government needs to make more efforts to effectively implement the policies in the field of VAW in order to meet its obligations under international laws.
Services for Survivors of Domestic Violence
The situation in the field of specialized services for women and children survivors of domestic violence is difficult in Slovakia. There are many social services facilities in Slovakia providing services also to women and children survivors of domestic violence; however, they provide services also to several other target groups, which results in the fact that they cannot address specific needs of women and children survivors of domestic violence. Furthermore, as they do not specifically target survivors of domestic violence against women, the staff in these facilities is not specifically trained in the area of violence against women; they lack qualified staff for work with children, or otherwise do not meet the basic standards recommended by the EU for specialized services for women and children survivors of domestic violence.
Another problem is that Slovak legislation in this area does not provide for a women’s shelter or counseling centre to offer specialized services for women and children survivors of domestic violence. Therefore, it is difficult to get state funding for the provision of these specific services. The lack of specialized services for women and children survivors of domestic violence has been recognized by the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Families due to the efforts and activities of women’s organizations working in this field.
According to monitoring of women support services in Slovakia carried out by the women’s NGO Fenestra in 2006, there are currently two women’s shelters offering approximately 36 places for women and children survivors of violence. There are five counseling centers providing specialized services to survivors of VAW. All of the services are operated by NGOs and funded mostly on a project basis and partly by regional governments.
Legislation
In the Slovak system of law, there is no specific law or legal regulation on violence against women. Provisions related to violence against women are included in various legal regulations, including, inter alia, the Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, Civil Code, and Code of Civil Procedure.
Two of the most important legal provisions related to violence against women are Section 208 of the Penal Code on the abuse of a close and dependent person and Section 179 of the Penal Code on trafficking in human beings. Other related provisions are included in: Section 199 of the Penal Code on rape, Section 200 of the Penal Code on sexual violence, Section 189 of the Penal Code on blackmail, and Section 359 of the Penal Code on violence against individuals or a group of people.
Even though the current legislation offers tools for victim protection, it fails to do so effectively in many cases of domestic violence due to, among other things, attitudes and views of law enforcement authorities on domestic violence, as well as a serious lack of comprehensive education and training of law enforcement professionals in the field of VAW. As a result, it can be assumed that violence against women is underreported in Slovakia, which is also clear from the General Prosecution Office statistics in 2007 on completed criminal proceedings: there were 126 persons charged with rape altogether, of which 79 were accused and 19 were convicted. In the case of Section 200 on sexual violence, a total of 78 persons were charged with the offence last year, of which 50 were accused and 24 were convicted.
The role of women’s NGOs
Women’s NGOs working in the field of violence against women began addressing the issue in the late 1990s. They initiated and carried out the first awareness-raising campaign against violence, “One-In-Five Women,” in 2001. Due to this campaign, the issue of domestic violence became more visible in the public eye.
Even though the Slovak government acknowledges the importance of the involvement of NGOs in policy and decision-making processes in the field of VAW, it is still rather low and the government has done very little to support and adequately fund women’s NGOs.
Research on VAW
The Slovak government has not carried out or funded any research on prevalence and nature of violence against women in Slovakia.
So far there has been only one comprehensive research in this field funded by UNDP, Open Society Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Foundation Slovakia and carried out by the International Centre for Family Studies in 2003.
According to this study, 29,3% out of adult women in Slovakia aged 15-65 who have had a partner at some point have experienced violence from at least one of their partners – almost one in three women. At the time of the research, 25.2% women were living in a violent intimate relationship. (Bodnarova, Filadelfiova: Domestic Violence and Violence against Women in Slovakia, Bratislava Centre for Family Studies, 2003)
It can be concluded that there is a serious lack of gender-specific data collection in all relevant areas, despite the fact that the above results of the research clearly indicate that violence against women is undeniably a serious issue having a negative and harmful impact on the lives of a large number of women in Slovakia, as well as on their children.
Sexual Harassment and Discrimination on the Grounds of Sex
In April 2008, the Slovak government passed the amended Act No. 365/2004 on Equal Treatment in Certain Areas and Protection against Discrimination (Antidiscrimination Act), which provides a definition of sexual harassment:
(5) Sexual harassment is verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that is aimed at or can cause a violation of the dignity of a person and creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.
The previous Antidiscrimination Act did not address sexual harassment, but harassment in general. Women who feel they have been subjected to sexual harassment can turn to the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights, which has a complaints procedure, or to the ombudsman.
Trafficking in Women
In Slovakia, no specific strategy or action plan has been adopted explicitly for the purposes of combating trafficking in women. However, on 11 January 2006, the Slovak government passed the National Action Plan for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings for years 2006-2007 as the key referential document with the following aims:
For the purposes of the NAP on Trafficking in Human Beings, Slovakia has adopted the definition stated in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime:
“Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”
The Ministry of Interior has allocated 1.900.000 Slovak crowns (approx. 50.000 EUR) for the purposes of the above action plan. Reports on progress made in carrying out the NAP on trafficking activities are not available so far.
Section 179 of the Penal Code addresses trafficking in human beings:
(1) for a person who using fraud; lies; restriction of personal liberty; violence; threat of violence; threat of harm; accepting or offering financial reward or other advantages to obtain the consent of a person, on whom another person depends; or by abuse of his/her status, powers, or vulnerability of other vulnerable position entices, recruits, transports or receives another person from abroad or abroad for purposes of sexual exploitation or other forms of sexual abuse including pornography, forced labor, slavery or other practice similar to slavery; or the removal of organs, tissues or cells; the applicable sentence is deprivation of liberty for not less than 4 years and not exceeding ten years.
(2) the same sentence is applicable for a person who entices, recruits, transports or receives another person under 18 from abroad or abroad for purposes of sexual exploitation or other forms of sexual abuse including pornography, forced labor, slavery or other practice similar to slavery; or removal of body organs, tissue or cells.
Gender Equality
In its Statement of Policy in 2006, the Slovak government declared the following:
The government will (...) support equality between women and men as an important factor of democratic development and the enjoyment of human rights in such a way that the obligations under the Lisbon Strategy and other international conventions could be met.
For the above purposes, the government will provide for regular monitoring of equal opportunities for women and men and setting up institutional structures to include gender perspective in all policies and decisions made at all levels of management of the society.
The government will (...) strictly pursue the equal treatment principle and take steps with a view to eliminating any form of discrimination on the grounds of sex, religion, race, nationality or ethnic origin, physical and mental handicap, age or sexual orientation.
In the last three years the Slovak government and relevant ministries have undertaken various activities in order to address gender equality issues in Slovakia - a twinning project on gender mainstreaming, a gender website of the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family, the equal opportunities strategy, utilization of the agenda of the Slovak National Human Rights Centre, and so forth. Nevertheless, this issue is not promoted sufficiently among both the general and professional public via information campaigns, awareness-raising activities and public discourse in order to change the perceptions of both women and men on gender equality issues. Moreover, the agenda of gender equality has not been included in public education curricula. Therefore, the agenda of gender equality needs a more consistent strategy and systemic measures to be taken in all relevant areas in order to be effective and succeed in bringing about a real change in the perceptions of traditional roles assigned to women and men in the society, as well as status of women in Slovakia in both public and private life.
Gender equality in the field of employment and labor market has been the topic of several studies and research carried out by the Institute for Public Issues (funded by private and public donors from Slovakia and abroad) is a positive development in data collection in this area.
Within the recent project of a women‘s NGO Aspekt on promoting gender equality, a publication on equal remuneration of women and men in Slovakia shows that while Slovak women earned 21.5% less than men in 1997, they currently earn 27% less than men, which shows that disparities in remuneration for women and men are increasing in Slovakia and that the Slovak government is not doing enough to effectively address the issue of gender equality in general.