Albania celebrates March 8

TIRANA, March 8 – The International Women’s Day has been celebrated across Albania, with thousands of women coming together in restaurants and coffee bars, having lunch and dancing. All public institutions held ceremonies.
March 8 has turned into a tradition holiday for the country’s women. It follow the national day of teachers a day earlier. International Women’s Day, which in Albania doubles as Mother’s Day, is also celebrated in Albanian families with gifts and praise for the work mothers do.
The European Union Delegation Ambassador in Tirana Ettore Sequi used the day to have breakfast with female parliamentarians.
“You are at once proof of what women in Albania and around the world are capable of, and proof of their struggle to enjoy equal rights and fulfill their potentials,” Sequi told the female MPs.
But the day also reminded everyone of the small, very little participation of the women in the country’s governing. They compose only 16.7 percent of the parliament, only 1.31 percent of heads of municipalities and communes at a time when Albania’s female population is roughly 50 percent.
Albania has by law the decision to have 30 percent of the parliament candidates as women. But the political parties, their leaders, men, have failed to meet the requirements.
Sequi said, “Data on gender equity in the legislative and top-level executive mirrors the situation of women in many other sectors.”
He added that advancing women’s rights is a high priority of the European agenda and reminded that the EU was “highly sensitive to the full political, social and economic empowerment of women.”
Women’s rights in Albania are in fact part of the 12 Priorities that the country needs to address in order to open accession negotiations.
The international community has urged Albania to use this year’s parliamentary elections in June to demonstrate the importance to equality of men and women.
A U.N.- and Sweden-supported study in Tirana showed that women have all the qualities to become lawmakers and more. UNDP Ambassador Zineb Touimi Benjelloun urged the local authorities and the population to promote the presence of women in the country’s leadership and governing.
They said that the presence of women in their top posts do not give a strong voice to the women.