Mar 28, 2024

Gender World Congress of Women Police Officers

In the period from 25-28.03.2024, all SEPCA Member states who are also part of the SEPCA Women Police Officers Network participated at the Gender World Congress of Women Police Officers that took place in Budva, Montenegro.

The event brought together the representatives from 24 countries and each SEPCA member state along with Australia, Austria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Tajikistan, and UK presented measures applied in their Police institution on gender equality.

The goal of the Congress was to share best experiences and practices on Gender Equality, promotion of Women in management positions in the Police and to learn from each other experiences.

The event was organised by the Association of Policewomen of Montenegro, European Network Policewomen and the International Police Association-Section of Montenegro and other partners from OSCE, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Ms. Jovana Mijović, State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Montenegro opened the event together with all organisers who underlined about the importance of Gender Equality in the Police.

The SEPCA Regional Coordinator, Ms. Elena Gherta from the Criminal Intelligence Service of Austria mentioned in the opening remarks that “policing is dynamic and complex, and we must constantly adapt to the new threats, challenges, new modus operandi, new emerging technologies (like AI), and societal changes to perform the duties effectively. This is why Gender Equality plays an important condition to ensuring this adaptability, because the voices and perspectives of female, as well as male officers are essential to address these phenomena.” 

Besides that, during the Panel Discussions, the SEPCA Regional Coordinator spoke about SEPCA, its role in the region and about the SEPCA Women Police Officers Network. Ms. Gherta underlined that “multiple measures on Gender Equality were implemented in the SEPCA region and in the last decades, the number of Female Officers has increased. This means that more and more women have chosen the law enforcement as a career. Also, the Management of Police institution from SEPCA member states showed a strong willingness to support Women to advance in their career and nowadays more female officers have high ranks and are applying for management positions.”

The SEPCA Presidency in Office was represented by Ms. Katarina Tomashević, the President of the Serbian Women Police Network who presented the results achieved for the Women in the Police Network of the Republic of Serbia, as well as plans for work and activities in 2024.

At the end of the event, Montenegrin colleagues organised an activity to green the yard by planting a tree in the "Second Elementary School" from Budva. All delegations planted Ginkgo Biloba tree next to which a wooden board was placed with the name of the country that supported the realization of this activity.