Dovilė Šakalienė (born 1 June 1978) is a Lithuanian psychologist, journalist and politician. She was elected to the Seimas as an independent on the list of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union in 2016, but left the party's parliamentary group and joined the Social Democratic Party of Lithuania in 2017.
Dovilė Šakalienė | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the Seimas | |
| Assumed office 14 November 2016 | |
| Constituency | Multi-member |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1 June 1978 Kaunas, Lithuania |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party of Lithuania (2017-present) |
| Other political affiliations | Independent (member of Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union parliamentary group) (2016-2017) Independent (member of Liberal Movement parliamentary group) (2017) |
| Spouse | Valdas (m. 1998)[1] |
| Alma mater | Vilnius University Mykolas Romeris University |
Biography
editŠakalienė finished high school in Panevėžys in 1996, and graduated from Vilnius University with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 2001 and from Mykolas Romeris University with a degree in legal psychology in 2003.[2] From 2004, she worked in the Lithuanian Human Rights Monitoring Institute (Lithuanian: Žmogaus teisių stebėjimo institutas), a non-governmental organisation which monitors the human rights situation in Lithuania, and became its project director. As project director, she criticized proposals in the Seimas to restrict LGBT rights and abortion rights in Lithuania,[3] and lacking attention to child abuse.[4]
From 2011 to 2015, Šakalienė was the presenter and producer of the Žinių radijas original programme "Man to Man" (Lithuanian: "Žmogus žmogui"). From 2012 to 2016, she worked as an accredited journalist at the Council of Europe.[2]
In 2015, Šakalienė was diagnosed with cancer. In January 2016, she was fired from her job in the Human Rights Monitoring Institute, which she claimed was done because of her illness.[5]
Political career
editŠakalienė first entered politics as an independent candidate on the list of the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union in the 2016 Lithuanian parliamentary election. In 2022, she stated that her decision to enter politics was motivated by her cancer diagnosis:
I have fought for many years to end violence against children, participated as an expert in a number of working groups and meetings, and spoken in Lithuania and abroad. When I was diagnosed with illness, I thought that if I had little time left, I had to do everything I could to make sure that child beating would finally become neither common nor tolerated, that child murders would become a memory of the terrible past. I had to admit that I would have to become a politician to do that, because only here can decisions be taken directly.[6]
On 14 February 2017, the Seimas approved the amendments to the Law on the Framework of the Protection of the Rights of the Child, presented by Šakalienė and Homeland Union deputy Mykolas Majauskas. The amendments banned corporal punishment in the home, included psychological abuse and neglect into the definitions of child abuse, and centralized the State Child Rights Protection Agency.[7] In 2019, the law was amended and its provisions softened after several instances of the child protection agency taking away children from families caused protests. Šakalienė blamed the incumbent Skvernelis Cabinet for insufficient funding and attention to the law's implementation.[8]
On 15 June 2017, Šakalienė left the Farmers and Greens Parliamentary Group over a conflict regarding child protection laws and temporarily joined the parliamentary group of the Liberal Movement.[9] After a few months, she joined the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party, after the party had suffered a split and over half of its representatives in parliament left for the newly established Social Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania.[10]
Šakalienė was reelected on the Social Democratic list in the 2020 Lithuanian parliamentary election.[11] During her second term, she sat on the National Security and Defense Committee and focused on national defense and foreign policy.[1] She was sanctioned by the government of China in March 2021 for her criticism of the persecution of Uyghurs in China.[12] She joined Social Democratic criticism of the government's conduct during the Belarus-European Union border crisis and stated that national defense concerns must be balanced with human rights concerns.[13] After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Šakalienė housed a Ukrainian refugee family in her home.[14]
After the 2024 Lithuanian parliamentary election, Šakalienė was named as the Social Democratic candidate for Minister of National Defence.[15]
References
edit- ^ a b "Dovilė Šakalienė". Seimas (in Lithuanian).
- ^ a b "DOVILĖ ŠAKALIENĖ". Central Electoral Commission of Lithuania (in Lithuanian). 2016.
- ^ Grigolytė, Rūta (6 June 2013). "Žmogaus teisių gynėja Dovilė Šakalienė: "Esame pakraupę dėl Seime užderėjusių projektų"". 15min.lt (in Lithuanian).
- ^ Bardauskas, Jevgenijus; Paškevičienė, Zinaida (10 January 2016). "Žmogaus teisių ekspertė: Lietuvoje kasmet nužudoma viena kaimo mokyklos klasė". 15min.lt (in Lithuanian).
- ^ Jackevičius, Mindaugas (18 January 2016). "Su vėžiu kovojanti D. Šakalienė atleista iš darbo". Delfi (in Lithuanian).
- ^ "Dovilė Šakalienė – apie gyvenimą pakeitusį įvykį ir priglaustus pabėgėlius: apie siaubą išgirsta iš pirmų lūpų". TV3 (in Lithuanian). 17 March 2022.
Daug metų kovojau dėl smurto prieš vaikus įveikimo, kaip ekspertė dalyvavau n darbo grupių ir posėdžių, kalbėjau Lietuvoje ir užsienyje. Susirgusi pamąsčiau, kad jei man liko nedaug laiko – turiu padaryti viską, kad pagaliau vaikų mušimas nebebūtų nei įprastas, nei toleruojamas, kad vaikų nužudymai taptų baisios praeities prisiminimu. Teko pripažinti, kad tam teks tapti politike, nes tik čia galima priimti sprendimus tiesiogiai.
- ^ Šakalienė, Dovilė (1 June 2018). "3 klausimai ir 3 mitai apie naująjį vaiko teisių įstatymą". Delfi (in Lithuanian).
- ^ Bauraitė, Rasuolė (11 April 2019). "Mūšyje dėl vaiko teisių apsaugos įstatymo – D. Šakalienės ir R. Šalaševičiūtės kibirkštys". Lietuvos rytas (in Lithuanian).
- ^ Vireliūnaitė, Lauryna; Želnienė, Liepa (15 June 2017). "Dovilė Šakalienė perėjo pas Seimo liberalus, "valstiečiai" reikalauja, kad ji atsisakytų mandato". 15min.lt (in Lithuanian).
- ^ "Socialdemokratų partijos frakciją išgelbėjo iš liberalų pabėgusi Dovilė Šakalienė". 15min.lt (in Lithuanian). 23 October 2017.
- ^ "DOVILĖ ŠAKALIENĖ". Central Electoral Commission of Lithuania (in Lithuanian). 2020.
- ^ Jursevičius, Deividas (26 March 2021). "Į Kinijos sankcijų sąrašą įtraukta Šakalienė: pagalvokime, ar mūsų vilkimi marškinėliai nepagaminti prievartiniu darbu". LRT (in Lithuanian).
- ^ Andrukaitytė, Milena (23 July 2021). "LSDP siūlymai dėl migrantų krizės: atsisakyti karo retorikos, prašyti ES pagalbos". 15min.lt (in Lithuanian).
- ^ "Dovilė Šakalienė – apie gyvenimą pakeitusį įvykį ir priglaustus pabėgėlius: apie siaubą išgirsta iš pirmų lūpų". TV3 (in Lithuanian). 17 March 2022.
- ^ "Premjero dar nėra, bet jau vardijamos galimų ministrų pavardės: kas gali taikytis į kėdes?". LRT (in Lithuanian). 28 October 2024.