Press release on the statement of the head of SNP Parlamentary club

Podgorica, May 25, 2021

At yesterday’s session in the Assembly, the head of the SNP parliamentary club, Dragan Ivanović, stated the following, among other things:

“One fellow MP said that fewer and fewer female children are being born in Montenegro. It is a project that I sincerely condemn, but it is what is the right of every citizen to influence the reproduction and gender of their children. Normally, the technique today in Montenegro and in the world is such that it can happen,” said Ivanovic.

The “right” to influence the gender of the child is not a right, it is a violation of a number of Montenegrin anti-discrimination laws, including the Montenegrin Constitution, which guarantees equality between women and men. I guess a member of the Parliament of Montenegro should know that. And the chairman, who should warn of the negative and discriminatory nature of such messages.

The use of early genetic tests to determine sex is explicitly prohibited by the Law on Conditions and Procedure for Abortion and the Law on Protection of Genetic Data, precisely because many of our citizens attribute this non-existent “right” to themselves, which is confirmed by official demographic statistics. In the last 10 years, an average of 108 boys per 100 girls were born in Montenegro, and in 2019 as many as 110, which significantly deviates from the biologically normal sex ratio at birth, which can range from 102 to 106 boys per 100 girls (data by United Nations Population Fund)

So, the problem is real, as is the reality that among the people we pay to represent the interests of all citizens are those who do not know the corpus of basic human rights and who support negative and discriminatory practices with their statements without any consequences.

Now the Assembly is on the move.

Women’s Rights Center
Queer Montenegro
NGO Juventas
Association Spektra
Association Stana
Women’s Safe House