Since 2007, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has been coordinating policies regarding the emancipation of women and the LGBTI community. The Emancipation Department of the Ministry is responsible for the specific policies. The current Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven, has the function of Minister of Emancipation as well. The main objectives of the Emancipation Department are the employment of women, combating violence against women and LGBTI citizens and equal rights for the LGBTI community.
For the coalition agreement 2017-2021 (Confidence in the Future), eight parties of the current government signed the Rainbow Agreement: “A range of measures will be adopted to tackle discrimination, including a supplement to Article 1 of the constitution prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and disability.” The coalition agreement also states that “unnecessary gender registration will be restricted wherever possible” and that the position of LGBTI people will be improved in the education sector. In 2018, a proposal for the amendment of the Equal Treatment Act (1994) was submitted in order to explicitly include transgender and intersexual citizens in the act. The amendment was adopted on March 12th, 2019, which means that the act will also protect citizens from discrimination based on gender characteristics, gender identity and gender expression.
The coordination of the Rainbow Agreement is the responsibility of the Minister of Emancipation and the measures to be taken are included in the latest emancipation memorandum (Emancipatienota 2018-2021). In the introduction, Van Engelshoven writes that the right of equal treatment is anchored legally, but that these principles are still too often ignored in practice. Three serious bottlenecks are being addressed: the labour market; social security and acceptance; and gender diversity and equal treatment. Important measures include:
- The compliance and enforcement of the Law on Management and Supervision (which includes a quota scheme) will be strengthened in order to increase the share of women in top level functions.
- WOMEN Inc., an organisation that strives for the equal treatment of women and men, will broaden their alliance with the Dutch media outlets NPO, RTL and Vice (a project that started in 2017 with the support of the Ministry). The goal is to raise awareness and stimulate diverse representation in the media. The Ministry also started researching the possibility of monitoring the media representation of women and the LGBTI community structurally.
In 2018, the research institute APE Public Economics published a report on diversity in the Dutch cultural sector, focusing on the composition of boards and staff of cultural institutions:
- In 2017, 40 percent of the board members of cultural institutions was female (compared to 33 percent in 2008).
- In 2017, 60 percent of the employees of cultural institutions was female (compared to 53 percent in 2008).
- In 2017, 46 percent of the advisors in cultural commissions, councils and funds was female.[1]
[1] In 2017, 48 percent of the Dutch working population was female.
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