MEETING ON OCCASION OF WOMEN'S DAY HELD AT EUROPEAN HOUSE

ZAGREB, March 8 (Hina) - Women account for 23 percent of deputies in the Croatian parliament's House of Representatives and in their attempts to come to senior party positions and enter parliament they were assisted by women from numerous non-governmental organisations, said the chairwoman of a newly-established parliamentary committee on gender equality, Gordana Sobol, at a meeting called "The Female Face of Politics Today" at the European House in Zagreb on Thursday. The meeting was organised on the occasion of Women's Day by the Women's Section of the Croatian Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and the women's group "Transition Toward Open Society." One of the main tasks of the gender equality committee is the setting up of a women's lobby in parliament regardless of party membership. A women's lobby is the only way to adjust some legal regulations to what we would like to have, Sobol said. It is positive that women deputies have managed to take over the chairmanship within their own parliamentary benches of some committees which are not traditionally women's, but a step backward in relation to the last parliamentary composition is that the Sabor does not have a single vice-chairwoman, Sobol said. (hina) rml