Members of the Initiative “Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform” met with Zulka Baljak and Stjepan Ivanuš, representatives of the Center for Civic Cooperation (CCC) in Livno on 21 January 2016. The meeting was the presentation of the Initiative and the establishment of joint cooperation on the issue of inclusion of citizens/women citizens and constitutional questions. The Initiative “Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform” met the members of the CGS with advocacy document Platform of Women’s Priorities for Constitutional Reforms and about further work of the Initiative aimed at strengthening members of the Initiative, as well as bringing closer the Constitution to all citizens/women citizens.
From CCC is emphasized that the project Our Constitution, Our Life, which was implemented in 2015, visited 33 municipalities in BiH and held a public discussion with the aim of bringing closer the constitutional questions to citizens/women citizens, as well as to receive feedback on what they think it is needed to reform in the Constitution and how to involve citizens/women citizens in these processes. They pointed out that, at the very start of launching the project, they faced the challenge of 13 Constitutions, but they are “going from the head” from the Constitution BiH with the hope that their steps in the process will contribute to a better life for all citizens/women citizens that participate in the process of creating a state with three or even one BiH Constitution.
In a conversation with citizens/women citizens in local communities, the CCC noticed a big problem in terms of gender equality, as well as that the citizens/women citizens are aware of this constitutional problem. Despite the high resistance on the issue of unbundling the Constitution, citizens/women citizens are aware of the problems that the currently constitutional order imposes them, pointed out members from CCC.
Members of the Initiative “Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform” and representatives of CCC pointed out that we should bring closer the Constitution BiH to citizens/women citizens which is a document of all of us and from which derive all our rights and solutions to all our problems, especially those at the local level.
Through meetings, CCC and the Initiative plan, in the coming months, to agree on common procedures of action in terms of approaching constitutional issues to citizens/women citizens.
Members of the CCC will, in March 2016, organize a press conference to introduce the public with the project “Our Constitution, Our Life”, in which the Initiative “Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform” will present all the conclusions and results of the conference held in December 2015 in Sarajevo regarding the adoption of gender-responsible Constitution.
In front of the Initiative at the meeting will attend: Danka Zelić, Enisa Raković, Armina Begić, Vildana Džekman, Selma Hadžihalilović, Dražana Lepir and Željka Umićević.
Vildana Džekman, PR of the Initiative “Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform”
Women Citizens for Constitutional Reform 