Gender equality and extension of women rights in Russia
within millennium development goals

10. Conclusions

The analysis of the gender groups' position in Russia shows that the base of the gender inequality is the unequal position of men and women in the economic region (different return on human capital, unequal access to the economic resources) and the remaining in the society, and even progressing, the traditional distribution of gender roles (large women's occupancy in household). It is evident that the change of such a position is only possible by means of realization of a complex of measures which allow for the long-term influence on the society and its institutions. The immediate change of the cultural traditions or the economic practice is not possible, so exactly because of this reason the actions which are directed on the achievement of gender equality and expansion of women's rights and possibilities, must be oriented on the long-term prospective. Cultural traditions and economic practice do not change under the influence of the political documents and programs, but political documents and programs help to set the priorities and orientation points of the authorities, political groups, and thus influence the behaviour of the economic entities and the population.

In spite of the fact that the gender inequality in many ways forms the economical processes, one of the top-priority goals for the expansion of the women's rights and possibilities is the provision for the equal access of men and women to the political institutions and public authorities. Women's under representation in the government authorities obstruct the comprehension of the necessity to implement a policy directed on the achievement of gender equality, limits the attention of the authorities to women's social problems, fixes in the consciousness of the men-politics the idea of «naturality» of the existing distribution of gender roles.

But provision for the equal gender political representation should be supported by the actions in other directions as well. Here, the actions for the achievement of gender equality should not bring only to women's position rise, but also to men's position rise. The achievement of gender equality, equation of women's rights and possibilities should not occur by means of men's position fall. The gender approach is not directed on achievement of equality in poverty and social losses, but on the rise of women's and men's position.

Considering the analyzed situation, speaking about the award for women's and men's equality and expansion of women's rights and possibilities, Russia should face the following tasks before 2015 :

• Task I. Provide for equation of the possibilities for women's and men's access to the political institutions;
  
  
• Task II. Eliminate the discriminative practice in the areas of work and employment;
  
  
• Task III. Reduce the unduly high women's share in the composition of the poor population of the country;
  
  
• Task IV. Create a system of effective prevention mechanisms of the violence of women attitude;
  
  
• Task V. Reduce the influence of negative social factors on health and life time.
  
  

What should be done in order to obtain the implementation of all the above named tasks in Russia? The possible program of actions is quite large. It should allow for all the measures directly connected with these tasks, as well as the indirect measures, which would remove the hidden barriers which obstruct the expansion of women's possibilities. Therefore, within the framework of each of the determined five tasks, it is necessary to allow for the following direction of the actions.

Task I.
Equation of the possibilities for women's and men's access to the political institutions:

• Formation of the legal platform of tender equality state policy, comprising the adoption of the law «Concerning the state guarantees, equal rights and freedom and equal women's and men's possibilities in the Russian Federation», which concretizes the relative constitutional norm as applied to different regions of the social life and determines the processual and procedural aspects of its implementation in practice;
• Application of modifications and amendments to the electoral legislation, which would encourage the expansion of the woman's representation in the lists of the candidates for deputies from political parties and associations;
• Formation of the government strategy to achieve the gender equality;
• Application of modifications and amendments to the legislation of state service, which would encourage the men's promotion to the upper echelons of the state authorities;
• Formation of the female personnel reserve in order to occupy the upper public positions with the help of special training programs, operating on the permanent basis.

Task II.
Removal of the discriminative practice in the areas of work and employment:

• Increase of remuneration of labour in the social industries - public health service, education, science, culture up to the level of the middle remuneration of labour in the national economy;
• Assignment, as well as the application of modifications and amendments to the labour legislation, providing for the antidiscriminative norms, guaranteeing the equal women's and men's possibilities while hiring, executing the labour activity, promoting at work and upon dismissal, including the right to part-time employment for women who have children;
• Enhancement of the control mechanism to comply with antidiscriminative norms of the labour legislation;
• Formation of the special government programs to support the female medium and small business, also in the rural regions;
• Enhancement of the legislation to develop the farm enterprises, small and medium business enterprises in the agricultural industry;
• Formation of the special complex regional and federal programs which would provide for the measures to train and retrain the female labour power considering the prospectives of the social development, economics' structural adjustment and compliance to the women's rights to achieve the full-value education;
• Formation of the government programs to develop the accessible services of social population service.

Task III.
Reduction of the unduly high women's share in the composition
of the poor population of the country:

• Development and enhancement of the system of social guarantees to the families and socially unprotected lonely people on the part of the state and social entities (for women free from imprisonment, lonely women with children, lonely women in pensionable age);
• Encouragement and support of the women's entrepreneurial activity in the rural regions;
• Expansion of the access of business women and women who want to start their business, to the information, finance and material resources;
• Design and creation of the package of mutually agreed legal documents, acts which regulate the activity of small enterprises and individual labour farms (peasant farmhold);
• Formation of the legislative base in order to develop the non-state region of social services.

Task IV.
Creation of a system of effective prevention mechanisms
of the violence of women attitude:

• Develop a purpose-oriented federal program which would provide also for the interauthority approach to question's solution;
• Apply modifications and amendments to the current legislation in order to develop the mechanism of elimination of violence of women attitude and prevention of traffic in people, that is enhance the legal base, including the development and adoption of the law on family violence and the law on prevention of traffic in people;
• Provide for the professional training and retraining for law enforcement officers, officers of public health service and social workers, workers of education, of mass communication media concerning the question of violence of women attitude in everyday life and in the society;
• Include the mechanisms of the existing legal base to the practice of prevention of violence of women attitude;
• Include in the statistical reporting the parameters of violence against women (in various forms, in particular – home violence, rape, sexual harassments at work and so on)
• Develop the system of the social rehabilitation of the violence victims.

Task V.
Reduce the influence of negative social factors on health and life time:

• Development and implementation of the program oriented at the reduction of workplaces with harmful and hazardous labour conditions;
• Realization of the measures oriented at the reduction of the negative consequences of alcohol consumption (fiscal policy, administrative limitations, information influence);
• Implementation of the programs oriented at the struggle with tuberculosis and social diseases;
• Development and support of the men's critical centers, telephone emergency services for suicide prevention.