January – July 2017

GOAL

The project aims at raising awareness of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) as an effective tool for action in this area, especially in the area of support for victims.

HOW THE PROJECT RAISES AWARENESS?

by offering material on the Convention in Albanian and Serbian for government and non-government actors to use in promoting and understanding the Convention;

51. offering a gap analysis of service provision for women victims of any of the forms of violence covered by the Istanbul Convention.

by organising a seminar with local stakeholders to present the findings of the gap analysis against the backdrop of the Convention's standards in the area of service provision

THE PROJECT AND THE ISTANBUL CONVENTION

The Istanbul Convention calls for a comprehensive national approach to combating all forms of violence against women, which includes preventive measures, protection and support for victims, and the effective prosecution of perpetrators. The Council of Europe has developed several publications on the Convention to offer practical guidance on its implementation. Some of these will be made available in Albanian and Serbian.

As a second step, the project will assess the level of service provision for women victims of violence in Kosovo*. As the protection and support for victims is one of the cornerstones of the Istanbul Convention, it contains far-reaching obligations to set up and support services for victims of the forms of violence it covers (physical violence, psychological violence, sexual violence and rape, stalking, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, forced sterilisation, forced abortion, and sexual harassment). The project will thus map the services that currently exist for women victims in a stock-taking exercise and issue recommendations for improvements in a final report. This report will be presented to local stakeholders in a conference to be held the 29 June 2017 in order to ensure follow up of the findings and recommendation of the report.

THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE

The Council of Europe is the only international organisation in Europe to have developed legally binding standards in the area of preventing and combating violence against women and is therefore ideally placed to promote these standards. It has long-standing expertise in delivering co-operation projects and providing technical assistance to interested authorities.

* All reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.