The authorities’ gender dialogue with themselves
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The new Regulation on the National Council on Gender Policy reveals how the Belarusian authorities understand public dialogue. Put simply, they are discussing gender equality with themselves.
On 1 June 2026, the Council of Ministers approved a new Regulation on the National Council on Gender Policy and revised its membership. Resolution No. 274 entered into force on 4 June. State propaganda outlets reported the decision as an “expansion of the National Council’s powers”. Formally, the Council is tasked with coordinating state gender policy and promoting equal rights and opportunities for women and men.
Its composition, however, shows how the Belarusian authorities understand public participation in decision-making on gender equality. Almost all seats have been allocated to representatives of ministries, executive bodies, state institutions and the regime-controlled parliament. The supposedly non-governmental sector is represented by only two state-controlled organisations: the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FPB) and the Belarusian Women’s Union.
There is no pluralism in the independent representation of workers — or even of employers.
This creates a familiar Belarusian model: the state recognises only the FPB, which is integrated into the state power structure, as a “trade union”, and then presents consultations with it as dialogue with working people.
Following the liquidation of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP) and its affiliated independent trade unions, the authorities effectively consolidated the FPB’s monopoly over any official representation of workers. The United Nations has concluded that all independent trade unions in Belarus have been dismantled, while the International Labour Organization has referred to measures that directly or indirectly prohibit the activities of independent trade unions and employers’ organisations.
The FPB’s participation in the National Council on Gender Policy therefore cannot be regarded as evidence of genuine social dialogue. It is, rather, an example of selective engagement between the state and the only permitted and politically loyal trade union federation.
Compared with its previous composition, the National Council has become smaller, while also losing some of its institutional diversity. Representatives of the Constitutional Court, the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences, the National State Television and Radio Company, and members of the parliamentary commission on health and family policy have been removed.
At the same time, the Deputy Minister of Information and the Chair of the Standing Commission on Labour and Social Affairs of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus have been added.
The most significant change is the strengthening of the family, demographic and ideological dimensions — areas prioritised by the current political regime.
The Council’s tasks now explicitly include strengthening the institutions of family and marriage, promoting “spiritual and moral values”, motherhood and fatherhood, encouraging responsible parenthood, and providing information support for these policies. The Ministry of Labour has also emphasised the link between the revised Regulation, the strengthening of marital relations and the development of a system of family values.
As a result, gender equality is increasingly viewed not as an autonomous matter of human rights, economic independence and protection from discrimination, but through the lens of state demographic policy.
It should be noted that the situation in this area is catastrophic. Belarus’s total fertility rate is around 1.1 children per woman — one of the lowest rates not only in the region, but in the world.
The Council must now review communication strategies, promote public awareness and support the development of an information environment advancing family, motherhood and fatherhood values.
The Council has also lost some of its former powers.
Previously, it oversaw the preparation of and approved Belarus’s periodic reports to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). It will now merely review draft reports and submit proposals, indicating a reduction in its institutional autonomy.
A similar change has taken place in the field of legislation. Whereas the Council could previously participate in drafting legislation, it may now only submit proposals to state bodies vested with the relevant powers. In practice, its role has been reduced to that of an advisory body.
The Council has also acquired new powers, including the coordination of expert working groups responsible for implementing gender policy. However, in the absence of independent workers’ organisations, human rights defenders and employers’ organisations, an obvious question arises: how objective and independent can such expertise be?
It is also telling that, while expanding its rhetoric on family, motherhood and responsible parenthood, Belarus has still not ratified ILO Convention No. 156 on Workers with Family Responsibilities, which treats the reconciliation of work and family responsibilities as a matter of equal opportunity, non-discrimination and concrete labour protections.
Nor has Belarus ratified ILO Convention No. 190 on the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work, including gender-based violence and harassment. Neither Convention is among the international labour standards ratified by Belarus.
The revised composition of the National Council once again demonstrates that the Belarusian authorities are prepared to discuss gender policy only as a formality and only on their own terms. They themselves determine the participants, the boundaries and the acceptable conclusions of that discussion.
In this structure, the FPB is needed not to defend the interests of its four million members, but to create the appearance that they are represented. The Council looks like yet another state-controlled consultation mechanism in which the authorities are, above all, talking to themselves.
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