“We have a responsibility to stop violence against women and girls by taking action, not only in words.” - Zaklina Pesevska, Member of Parliament (MP) and President of VMRO-DPMNE’s Union of Women in North Macedonia.

Member of Parliament Zaklina Pesevska is just one of many political leaders in North Macedonia driving reform within their political parties to advance gender equality, strengthen the role of women in politics and public life, and lower the individual, socio-cultural, and institutional barriers to women’s political participation. With support from NDI under the Advancing Gender Equality Through Women’s Political Participation (WoMen Lead) program, eight mainstream political parties in North Macedonia - Alliance for Albanians, Alternativa, Besa Movement, Democratic Renewal of Macedonia (DOM), Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) and VMRO-DPMNE - have made significant progress in advancing gender equality and creating opportunities for women candidates and politicians since the program’s launch in 2020. 

Reflecting on the history of violence against women in politics (VAW-P) in North Macedonia, NDI collaborated with various stakeholders, including political parties, civil society organizations, and women’s rights activists, to design the WoMen Lead program. The program specifically seeks to address the persisting patriarchal and socio-cultural norms that reflect gender bias and contribute to rampant verbal, emotional, physical, and online violence against women politicians, candidates, and party members. 

While tailoring its approach to combating VAW-P, NDI determined that a national media campaign ahead of the 2021 local elections would be the most effective way to both build awareness of VAW-P among the general public and to encourage individuals and parties at large to identify and combat violence against women within their ranks. With this goal in mind, NDI launched the "Vote NO to Violence Against Women in Politics" media campaign. To increase public awareness of the prevalence of VAW-P, NDI broadcasts "Vote NO to Violence Against Women in Politics" branded media across multiple social media platforms, billboards, television, and radio streaming services on the local and national levels. By the end of 2023, NDI had multiple billboards at busy intersections, a VAW-P website that surpassed 10,000 page visitors, and social media content that reached 1.3 million unique users and captured over 110,000 likes, comments, and reshares. By sharing statistics and information on the prevalence of VAW-P on various media platforms, NDI encouraged the public to speak more openly about the reality of VAW-P. DOM MP Maja Morachanin spoke about the impact of this stating, “The Vote NO to Violence against Women in Politics’ campaign has made the topic of violence a burning topic to discuss. Previously, we have had violence around elections, but nobody talked about it. The campaign gave us ground; a big reason to talk about it and react to it.”

Beyond social and traditional media campaign broadcasting, NDI launched the Gender Equality Task Force (GETF), a cross-party initiative comprised of eight mainstream political parties. It includes both men and women representatives seeking to advance gender equality within their parties. NDI collaborated with the GETF to draft internal party commitments to advance gender equality and eliminate VAW-P, not just in their respective parties but also within politics at the sub-national and national levels. By taking a cross-party approach, NDI emphasized VAW-P as an issue that is not just the problem of one political party, but one that requires the attention and efforts of all parties working together. 

NDI collaborated with political parties and municipalities to empower politicians to combat VAW-P both institutionally and personally. In 2022, NDI began working with municipal Committees on Equal Opportunities to create a formal Commitment to Promote Gender Equality and Eliminate Violence Against Women in Politics. The Commitment codified the Committees’ dedication to upholding domestic and international standards to advance gender equality in political parties and reduce violence against women as well as publicly condemn the violation of fundamental freedoms, including the elimination of physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and digital violence. By the end of 2023, all 21 municipalities that are part of the WoMen Lead program had signed the Commitment. 

Reflecting on the experience of developing and garnering support for the Commitment, Admirim Aliti, Vice President of Alternativa and member of the GETF, stated “We all represent our parties in this cross-party group, and the names of the parties should be listed, but every one of us has a first and last name, and to show our personal responsibility and to set a good example, we should all sign this reaction with our names in addition to the parties...we all individually carry weight in our political parties.”

NDI’s efforts through the media campaign and WoMen Lead program at large brought the issue of VAW-P to the forefront of national attention. Political parties are taking concrete steps to address VAW-P within their internal frameworks, politicians are speaking openly and publicly about instances of violence that they are subjected to, and the public is increasingly aware of the prevalence of this issue in North Macedonia. As the country is set to hold two sets of elections in 2024, NDI expects heightened awareness and public condemnation of VAW-P in ways it had not prior to the implementation of the WoMen Lead program. 

Due to the success of the VAW-P campaign and the entirety of the WoMen Lead program, NDI plans to relaunch the campaign in early 2024, ahead of the scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections. 

Author: Abigail Miller, Program Associate for NDI’s Central and Eastern Europe team

NDI’s engagement with this program is implemented with the support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. 

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NDI is a non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization that works in partnership around the world to strengthen and safeguard democratic institutions, processes, norms and values to secure a better quality of life for all. NDI envisions a world where democracy and freedom prevail, with dignity for all.