Gender Equality Training at the Disaster Management Organization

The principle of equal treatment has played an important role among the basic principles of Community law ever since the beginning of European integration. In 1957, Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome only provided that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work; however, aspirations towards gender equality have intensified in recent decades. In Hungary, the desire to institutionalize equal opportunities was formulated in 2002, as a result of – among other things – the upcoming EU accession and sectoral policy trends established in Western Europe: the Government Office for Equal Opportunities was set up, together with the nationwide network of Houses of Opportunities, and in 2003 a bill was enacted on equal treatment and the promotion of equal opportunities.
 
One of the trends of gender equality policy is “gender mainstreaming”, aimed to transform the system of social norms and to eliminate the structural and institutional roots of inequalities in order to prevent inequalities from being reproduced. Another aim of mainstreaming is to get everyday decision makers in charge to review, develop, and assess public policy procedures in a way that the aspect of gender equality should be integrated in public policies, in each area, at each level and stage of the decision making process.
 
In addition to positive measures and initiatives taken earlier, the National Directorate General for Disaster Management of the Ministry of Interior developed its gender strategy and the associated action plan – summarizing the implementation steps of short, medium and long term objectives related to the subject – in 2016, in the framework of the project titled “Local capacity development of disaster management institutions”, implemented in collaboration with Norway Grants. The strategy and the action plan are intended to facilitate the development of gender equality within the disaster management organization. Pursuant to the action plan, a total of twenty training courses in the subject of “gender mainstreaming” were organized by the Directorate General to a specific group of employees, held between 24 and 28 October, lasting for four days.
 
In the course of the training, participants got an insight into the gender equality regulatory system at EU level, in Hungarian law, and in organizational schemes. They were acquainted with recent endeavors in this area and their positive impact. During the training, the attendees solved many interactive tasks intended to sensitize colleagues in connection with the subject, to familiarize with dominant stereotypes, to review the current situation in Hungary, and to integrate the knowledge gained in the course of this joint consideration exercise into their everyday work and into their own decision making processes later on.