Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, Deputy Secretary General, attended the ceremony of the Council of Europe North-South Prize in Lisbon. The Prize was awarded to two women's rights activists, Monika Hauser, founder of medica mondiale – an NGO which assists women and girls in war and crisis zones throughout the world – and a Pakistani lawyer Asma Jilani Jahangir.

Paying tribute to the "courage and exemplary endeavours of two distinguished laureates", the Deputy Secretary General stressed that both prize winners "risked their lives to improve the condition of women, irrespective of ethnic or religious origin." She called upon states around the world to sign and ratify the Council of Europe's Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. "Stopping violence against women is an urgent requirement of human rights protection". (more…) 

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