Iveta Radicova The first woman Prime Minister of Slovakia and former Minister of Defense and Labor

Remarks at the IWD 2017 gathering, “Women in Political Leadership”

It’s a real pleasure for me to be once more among you. Believe me, I have never in my life said no to be part of you and with you.

The world is the only place we can live. That’s true. But the world has to be the best place we can live. So what we can do together to have the world, our world, based on human dignity where each of us has the same chance to be a human being. I think that we need to take three very important steps.  And this is my experience from my own country from our Europe.

The first step is to change the regime from dictatorship to democracy. That’s true. The second step is to create a really democratic government, democratic structures, and democratic free elections. And you have a good leader to do it.

And then is the most complicated step, when you have the power. You are democratically elected and you have to implement human rights on all levels of social life.

It means that we need to implement and promote three basic moral principles of human beings. First is tolerance. We cannot exist together if there is hate, instead of love. We cannot live together if there is a war instead of peace. And we cannot live together, if we disagree with those people who only see the world in different colors.

The second moral principle is trust.  You have to trust yourself, your force, your ability, your skills, and to your truths. And do everything to have these rights.

And last but not least, solidarity.

I would like to use this place and chance to thank the Albanian government, to give you the chance to be prepared to return home, to your own home with a democratic regime, with freedom, with tolerance, and prepare it for educating your children. And be fully, only for your families and build your own homeland.

When I heard the song of Beethoven when Maryam came inside, you know it is a European hymn. Songs can connect us and I hope that not only the dreams, not only our speeches, but our everyday life when we can show that we know each other, we love each other, and we are friends together.

I would like to have the chance and to be proud to be your friend.

God help you.