NGOs as advocates for gender equality and women’s rights

Terms of reference approved by the General Assembly on 6 October 2021

Co- chair - Bettina Hahne (Soroptimist International of Europe) and Anita Schnetzer-Spranger (Zonta International)

Bettina Hahne (SIE), co-chair: Contact

Anita Schnetzer-Spranger (ZI), co-chair: Contact

Sara Pilia (Eurodoc), secretary: Contact

PRESENTATION OF THE COMMITTEE

Based on the Committee of Ministers’ decision in Helsinki and the Secretary General’s follow up proposal to strengthen the role of civil society organizations and their meaningful participation within the Council of Europe, the Conference of INGOs adopted a declaration on its commitment in December 2020.

It highlights amongst others the dissemination of the Council of Europe’s legal instruments and tools “to inform the citizens about their rights, granted by their country’s commitment to the Council of Europe treaties and conventions”.

To fulfil this commitment the Committee "NGOs as advocates of gender equality and women's rights" seeks to enable NGOs to promote the Council of Europe’s ground-breaking conventions and recommendations concerning women’s rights and gender equality in their respective NGO and in civil society. The objective is to explore and develop concrete strategies, advocacy activities and tools to make the conventions better known and implemented in member states’ civil society. The Committee encompasses a broad variety of NGOs with focus on women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of women.

COMMUNICATIONS

Statement on the rights of women and girls - 17 November 2022
Statement on Covid-19 impact on women (bilingual) - 4 November 2022
Statement on women’s situation in Ukraine - 3 March 2022

DOCUMENTS

Final Committee Report to the General Assembly - 8 April 2024
Committee Report to the General Assembly - 14 October 2023
Committee Report to the General Assembly - 24 April 2023
Committee Report to the General Assembly - 5 October 2022
Lesson on Gender Equality in Advertising - Pedagogical resources for children - 5 October 2022
Presentation during the General Assembly of the Conference of INGOs - 5-6 April 2022
The Istanbul Convention - for a world safe from violence - 5-6 April 2022

Events

Roundtable “Gender Equality is a Human Rights issue. How can we join forces to promote and protect it today?” - 9 October 2023

Concept Note

Minutes

Webinar “NGOs and the monitoring of the Istanbul Convention" - 31 January 2023

Recording of the webinar

Presentation during the webinar

news

Back Webinar “NGOs and the monitoring of the Istanbul Convention” organised by the committee "NGOs as advocates for gender equality and women’s rights" on 31 January 2023

Lusine SAHAKYAN

Modified 1 Year ago.

Committee "NGOs as advocates for gender equality and women’s rights"

Webinar “NGOs and the monitoring of the Istanbul Convention” organised by the committee

The webinar took place as planned and was a success attended by more than 140 participants.

The highlight was the presentation by Mihail Stojanoski who works at the Secretariat of the Istanbul Convention. He outlined the scope of the “Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” and described how non-compliance is monitored by GREVIO.

The webinar can be wrapped up in a very important take-home-lesson for NGOs: any report on non-compliance with the Istanbul Convention is highly welcome and can be submitted informally and confidentially to conventionviolence@coe.int.

You can listen to the recording of the webinar or download the presentation.

Recording of the webinar

Presentation during the webinar

Strasbourg 8 February 2023