On International Women's Day, it is important to reaffirm our shared commitment to combating gender-based power inequalities, which underlie violence against women worldwide. We must ensure that women are protected from all forms of violence, exploitation, and abuse. 

The Council of Europe's Tunis and Rabat offices, along with the North-South Centre, are working together to implement the 2018-2023 Council of Europe's Gender Equality Strategy. They support social and political initiatives at the local, national, and regional levels to strengthen women's protection services in the Southern Mediterranean region. 

Despite progress made, violence against women¹ persists across all social classes in both public and private spaces. The Istanbul Convention emphasizes that many forms of discrimination, harmful practices, and gender stereotypes cause violent behavior. Therefore, it is crucial to place the rights of victims at the center of all measures and to strengthen cooperation between relevant agencies and organisations to combat structural violence against women. 

The Council of Europe's projects in the Southern Mediterranean region regularly offer awareness and capacity-building programmes, as well as grants for government and non-government actors. These programmes contribute to the establishment of prevention and victim protection services throughout the entire protection process.

In this regard, the Council of Europe's Tunis and Rabat offices, along with the North-South Centre, have created a new cross-cutting page aimed at providing comprehensive documentation on violence against women in the Southern Mediterranean region, as well as the Council of Europe's projects that are working to combat it. 

To find out more, please consult the page (available in french and arabic).

1 The United Nations defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."