Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 11 January 2022, a meeting of the Senate Committee on Women and Gender Equality was held. The event was attended by senators, Committee experts, chairmen of the standing committees of local Keneshes on youth policy, women and gender equality, representatives of relevant ministries and departments, their territorial structures and the media.

The meeting discussed the draft Presidential Decree "On the Development Strategy of New Uzbekistan for 2022-2026".

As you know, the Development Strategy and the roadmap for its implementation in 2022 stipulates the achievement of about 100 carefully developed goals within the 7 priority directions of the country’s development.

In recent years, a great deal of work has been done to increase the activity of women in all spheres of the country’s economic, political and social life, to provide comprehensive assistance in their acquisition of education and professional skills and to ensure their employment, to further support their entrepreneurial initiatives, to address the issues of women included in the “women’s notebook”, Systematic study, targeted solution of their needs and interests. It is important in the future to continue the systematic work begun in this direction.

Today, half of the country’s population is made up of women. Of course, along with the strata in need of social protection, the draft Decree spells out specific mechanisms for comprehensive support of women, in particular, their social protection, employment, and widespread involvement in entrepreneurship.

In particular, among them are such important tasks as increasing the 3-year period for women to 6 years, which together with the entire time spent on parental leave is included in the length of service when calculating pensions, the creation of a separate database on women, youth and people with disabilities in the system of the Unified Register of Social Protection, including the integration of the "iron notebook", "youth notebook" and "women’s notebook" with the Unified Register of Social Protection.

It should be noted that the draft Decree plays an important role in improving the system of providing high-tech medical care to women of reproductive age and pregnant women, children, while raising work on the protection of women’s reproductive health, prevention and prevention of maternal and perinatal diseases to a new level. In this regard, it is planned to create 46 interdistrict perinatal centers, to provide them with personnel, the necessary medical equipment and products.

The issues of ensuring the employment of women in our country, creating favorable conditions for increasing their material interest, providing them with a constant source of income are the essence of the socio-economic reforms being carried out in our country. In this regard, the project pays special attention to ensuring the employment of women.

So, it is planned to reduce the unemployment rate among women by 2 times, only in 2022 to implement specific mechanisms for vocational training for more than 80 thousand unemployed women at the expense of the state.

During the meeting, a member of the Senate Committee on Science, Education and Healthcare Manzura Salimova noted that for the 59th goal of the Strategy, the issue of improving the system of providing high-tech medical care to women of reproductive age, pregnant women and children is very relevant. It is envisaged to create 46 interdistrict perinatal centers, to provide them with personnel, necessary medical equipment and products. In this regard, she noted the advisability of including in the roadmap the issue of taking into account the complexity of the type of medical services provided and the results achieved when paying doctors and medical personnel working in perinatal centers.

At the same time, the Committee’s expert Lola Saidova, professor at the Center for Advanced Training of Lawyers, made proposals for the strategy to separately include as a priority the goal of ensuring gender equality in Uzbekistan, through which it is necessary to create favorable conditions for enhancing the participation of women in government. and society, their activities in dekhkans and farms, to introduce a gender approach in all sectors and industries, regardless of the form of ownership.

These proposals will be summarized and sent to the Development Strategy Center.

It was noted at the meeting that the draft Decree fully covers the interests of the regions, and the opportunities provided for women will lead to further improvement of their way of life.