Description
Equal opportunities for women and men are already established terms, and so is the understanding of basic facts regarding forms, causes and consequences of violence against women (VAW): at least among gender experts and the professionals. While equal opportunities and discourse related to gender issues are often seen as “feminist inventions and nonsenses”, VAW in all forms still strikes women from all backgrounds and of all ages and shows only frail decline. It is also symptomatic, that the Czech Republic is one of the few CoE countries that have not signed the Istanbul Convention. To help increase awareness about selected gender issues (with focus on VAW & Istanbul Convention) among general public and spread the understanding of equal opportunities and importance of gender sensitive policies also among public living off the major centers, we will carry out a project that comprises of information campaign and capacity building for women grassroots activists, using our nationwide member base to reach out to regions. All published materials will be also available to interested public in e-format, downloadable from our websites.
Summary of project results
While gender equality and gender based violence (GBV) are well established terms, everyday discourse suggested different stories. Initially our goal was to increase awareness of the related issues among general public, and to reach out to the less obvious target audiences in the regions / rural areas; and also to raise awareness of a new legal tool, the Istanbul Convention (IC). However due to the reluctance of the CR to access to the IC, the intended info-campaign was transformed into a campaign for accession to the IC that was developed in coalition with other women’ and human rights NGOs. Furthermore, along with the campaign we also organized seminars and debates focused on vulnerable groups of women and on selected minority issues; as the Europe was hit by the migration crisis, debates during these events and published articles also touched on issues such as gender and migration, women asylum seekers, sexism, xenophobia and intolerance. Part of the project also focused on capacity building of our organization (or rather of our regional members). We have organized: one nationwide campaign incl. petition for accession to the IC in close coop.with other NGOs; 25 training/educational seminars for 1000+ participants; and prepared 4 newsletters, web
www.rovnesance.cz with articles on IC, GBV & related issues. We believe that our joint and intense effort contributed to the fact that the CR signed the IC on May 2, 2016. As intended, we managed to reach out to the target audiences in (i.a.) rural regions and to increase awareness & visibility of and interest in gender equality and selected issues related to GBV and vulnerable groups. Public debates also covered / opened up issues such as e.g. gender & migration.
Summary of bilateral results