Belgium

Government responsibilities

The Minister of Employment, Economy and Consumers is responsible for gender equality policy, alongside foreign trade, poverty alleviation, equal opportunities and people with disabilities.

The ICG was established by the Gender Mainstreaming Law (2007) and is regulated by a royal decree (2010). This group is overseen by the Belgian semi-independent body and is composed of staff from each ministerial cabinet, the federal public service, public programming service and the Ministry of Defence, as well as representatives of the IEWM. It coordinates the implementation of the provisions of the Gender Mainstreaming Law in each department.

At the federal level, the Council for Equal Opportunities between Men and Women has acted as an advisory body for ministries and other organisations (such as the National Labour Council) since 1993. It draws up reports, conducts research, proposes measures, formulates opinions and provides information on equal opportunity policy, at the request of the competent minister for equal opportunities, any other federal minister, organisation, group, individual or on its own initiative.

Independent gender equality body

Belgium’s main organisation for gender equality and gender mainstreaming at federal level is the federal Institute for the Equality of Women and Men (IEWM). Established in 2002 as a semi-independent body, the IEWM is under ministerial control from an administrative perspective but remains autonomous with respect to legal action or the provision of advice to government and other public authorities. A specific unit within the IEWM is responsible for gender mainstreaming processes at federal level.

The IEWM is competent as an equality body for the federated entities, with protocols in place that designate the Institute as an independent body promoting equality within those entities. Thus, the Institute can write independent reports on gender discrimination within the jurisdiction of the entities concerned and provide them with opinions and recommendations on gender equality. It has signed protocols of collaboration with the French Community (2008), the Walloon Region (2009), the French Community Commission (2013), the Brussels-Capital Region (2016), and the German-speaking Community (2016).

Substantial cuts to the IEWM budget in 2016 saw a reduction in subsidies for activities, research and associations, which has significantly complicated the Institute’s work.  

Parliamentary bodies

For the representative elected bodies, the system of regular reporting to the government and the parliament features public hearings and reports on prog­ress on gender equality initiatives. The focus of the reporting system primarily concerns gender mainstreaming and gender-based violence but other reports can also be presented.

Although there is no parliamentary committee with gender equality as a specific part of its brief, the Commission for Public Health, Environment, and Society Renewal receives or collects information on progress in the field of gender equality field. Following the general election of May 2019, the Commission was renamed the Health and Equal Opportunity Commission.

Regional structures

Gender equality policy in Belgium is implemented by both federal and federated authorities, in their respective domains of competence and at their respective governance level. The 1994 Constitution stipulates that Belgium comprises:

Three communities: the French Community, the Flemish Community and the German-speaking Community;
Three regions: the Walloon Region, the Flemish Region and the Brussels-Capital Region;
Four language regions: the French-speaking region, the Dutch-speaking region, the bilingual Brussels-Capital region and the German-speaking region. Every commune in the country belongs to one of these language regions.

The communities and regions are federated entities with their own political bodies. The language regions are simply political divisions of Belgian territory.

Considerable differences exist between the gender equality policies and government bodies of the various constituent parts of the Belgian State. The relationship between the federal and regional levels is complex in all aspects of administration. This has prevented a joined-up approach to gender equality, resulting in gender mainstreaming strategies being developed independently.

Regional competences are related to the occupation of ‘territory’, in the broad sense of the term. Thus, the Flemish Region, the Brussels-Capital Region, and the Walloon Region exercise their powers in the fields of economy, employment, agriculture, water policy, housing, public works, energy, transport (with the exception of the SNCB), the environment, land-use planning and urban planning, nature conservation, credit, foreign trade, guardianship over provinces, and municipalities. They are also competent in scientific research and international relations in the aforementioned fields.

Communities are based on the language spoken by the inhabitants. A range of related subjects thus fall within community competence: culture (theatre, libraries, audiovisual, etc.), teaching, use of languages and so-called ‘customisable’ subjects, including health policy (preventive and curative medicine) and social supports (youth protection, social assistance, support for families, reception of immigrants, etc.).

This complex organisation means that regions and communities can work to progress gender equality in all of the fields of their legal competence. The regions and communities may therefore have their own gender equality bodies.

French Community

The regional government gender equality bodies of the  French Community pursue a number of tasks and objectives, including: gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting, gender balance decree (highlighting the share of people of the same sex in decision-making bodies), fight against discrimination, combat violence against women, granting subsidies and aid to associations. In April 2014, the Walloon government adopted a Gender Mainstreaming Decree to pursue the fight against gender discrimination. This decree is now at the stage of implementation.

The local Directorate of Equal Opportunities divides its activities into six priorities: education, youth and sport, culture, audiovisual and media, the fight against violence, and discrimination and decision-making. Gender mainstreaming now applies to all policies developed by the Community.

In 2017, the government of the French Community adopted two Decrees amending the Decree of 7 January 2016 on the integration of the gender dimension in all policies of the French Community. The first concerns the integration of the gender dimension in all decisions of the Community. It establishes the framework of the gender impact assessment before all policies - the ‘gender test’. The second regulates the integration of the gender dimension in all budgets of the Community. It introduces a three-step analysis method: codification, justification of the choice, and compilation of all budgets so as to promote equality between women and men.

Brussels-Capital Region

The gender equality body of the Brussels-Capital Region is responsible for awareness-raising actions, such as campaigns, studies, research and publications. Gender mainstreaming is occasionally applied by the Brussels-Capital Region, sometimes by the French Community authorities. In addition to the acts that frame the gender mainstreaming strategy, other pieces of legislation also address the fight against discrimination based on gender and the equal treatment of women and men.

On 29 March 2012, the government of the Brussels-Capital Region adopted a Decree on gender mainstreaming, aiming to integrate the gender dimension into the political lines of the Brussels-Capital Region. This was followed by the Decree on the integration of the gender dimension into the political action on 24 April 2014 and the Decree on gender budgeting on 14 July 2016.

On 21 June 2013, the French Community Commission adopted a decree to integrate the gender dimension into its political lines, with an identical intervention subsequently adopted by the Common Community Commission [2] on 16 May 2014.

Flemish Region

Since 2005, the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) has been used to embed and integrate an equal  opportunities perspective into each Flemish area of competence. The application of the OMC in the Flemish equal opportunities policy was enacted by decree in 2008.

In 2015, Flanders chose to assign gender-related missions within its area of competence to a Gender Ombudsman within the Flemish Mediation Service. The Institute can deal independently with complaints of gender discrimination, carry out studies within the competence of the federated entities concerned and issue opinions and recommendations on gender equality.

The Gender Ombuds service (Gender Kamer Vlaanderen) is the independent gender equality body for Flanders. Although part of the region’s Ombudsman, it has additional specific missions and other legal provisions. Its mission includes the following activities:

• to promote equal treatment, equal opportunity, diversity in society and proportional participation, and the elimination and prevention of all forms of discrimination, exclusion, restriction, exploitation or prejudice on the grounds of sex, gender identity, and gender expression;
• to develop dialogue and structural cooperation with the associations, bodies, and services directly involved in the performance of these missions and exchange information with European counterpart organisations.

Finally, the Decree of 10 July 2008 specifies the general framework of the fight against gender discrimination for the Flemish region and community.

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