A  Council of Europe project on "Combatting digital and sexual violence against women in Bosnia and Herzegovina“, will support authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to further align their legislation, policies and practices to the standards of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) following the first GREVIO Baseline Evaluation Report for Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 3-5 October 2023, the project's team met with representatives of key institutions on state and entity levels, including the respective ministries of justice, ministries for interior affairs, ministries of health, as well as the agencies responsible for gender equality, non-governmental organizations and the international community to identify synergies and best ways to foster technical support and to transfer know how on combatting sexual and digital violence against women.

Furthermore, to support awareness raising among the national authorities on the digital dimension of violence against women, GREVIO General Recommendation No. 1 on the digital dimension of violence against women is available in the local language.

The Council of Europe also participated in the Internet Governance Forum for Bosnia and Herzegovina where Elif Sariaydin, from the Secretariat of the monitoring mechanism of the Council of Europe Istanbul Convention, highlighted digital violence against women as one of the key challenges when it comes to cyber security and cybercrime, the need for a multi-sectoral response from governmental and non-governmental actors to these types of violence, and introduced the GREVIO General Recommendation No. 1 on the digital dimension of violence against women.

The project will run from June 2023 to December 2024.