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Back The protection of all women is a priority.

North-South Prize of the Council of Europe 2021 Award Ceremony, 18 October 2022. The North-South Prize of the Council of Europe 2021 was awarded to Laureates Zarifa Ghafari, in recognition of her courage and commitment to the defence of women's rights, and to the COVAX mechanism, in recognition of its efforts to ensure the availability and distribution of COVID 19 vaccines worldwide.

North-South Prize of the Council of Europe 2021 Award Ceremony, 18 October 2022. The North-South Prize of the Council of Europe 2021 was awarded to Laureates Zarifa Ghafari, in recognition of her courage and commitment to the defence of women's rights, and to the COVAX mechanism, in recognition of its efforts to ensure the availability and distribution of COVID 19 vaccines worldwide.

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." 

Lisbon 08/03/2023
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The Women Empowerment (WE) programme leads awareness raising, capacity building and networking activities to build effective regional cooperation between the relevant stakeholders to advance gender equality and women’s rights in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Activities

Activities

Good practices

Good practices

Partners

Partners

The WE Programme aims at empowering women by promoting a common understanding and unanimous condemnation of all forms of discrimination against women and girls within two projects:

WE against gender-based violence

In the framework of the South Programme IV “Regional Support to Reinforce Human Rights, Rule of Law and Democracy in the Southern Mediterranean”, Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation for the Protection of Women and Girls against Violence project aims to improve protection mechanisms of women and girls victims/survivors of gender-based violence in the Southern Mediterranean region.

 

 Visit the webpage

WE for diversity and equality

WE for diversity and equality project is addressing the intersectional forms of discrimination against women and girls to promote the cultural and identity diversity of women.

Visit the campaign webpage. 

Women's voices at the heart of our awareness actions

LISTEN TO US

The North-South Centre raises awareness on obstacles and barriers, whether dictated by social norms or legal frameworks, which stand between survivors of sexual violence and access to justice. To promote a non-stereotyped view and to encourage the public opinion to support survivors of violence the North-South Centre created « Listen to us ». The video Listen to Us is the result of collaboration between the North-South Centre and youth artists from Algeria and Jordan. Houss Ine, member of the project SKIMI Radio in Algeria and creator the soundtrack, and the filmmaker Maysoon, creator of the Falak project in Jordan, were responsible for the creative direction of the video inspired by real stories and testimonies of survivors of sexual violence. The narrative was conceived with the support of young activists from Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine* and Portugal. 

 "Listen to us"

 

 

 

 

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Intersectionality transforms our realities