10. December. 2016. | 2:58

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UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women

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Status: Finished

Partners and Supporters:

European Centre for Minority Issues, UN Women

As a partner to the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), Aktiv has begun working on a project designed to empower minority women in Kosovo. AKTIV’s role in the project is centered around the provision of legal aids in North Kosovo and Gracanica. The target groups are Serb and Roma women in local communities. Firstly the project will train, engage and support seven local female activists as community-based paralegals. These paralegals will provide survivors of GBV with advice and assistance in accessing Kosovo’s available prevention and treatment services. The project therefore helps to ensure that minority women in the selected municipalities are better able and more willing to access prevention and treatment services for GBV. The seven female activists will receive training and experience as paralegals and 1,890 minority women will receive advice and assistance from the paralegals on issues of GBV.

Objectives:

• To empower local women through the provision of knowledge regarding legal processes

• To educate local woman on their rights in cases of gender-based violence, divorce, child custody and other issues

• To improve the overall status of women in local communities by tackling issues such as gender-based violence

Main Activities:

• Providing local women with legal advice through the engagement of paralegals – two of whom will be based in North Kosovo (all four municipalities) and 1 of whom will be based in Gracanica

• Providing training on both practical and theoretical issues regarding women’s rights and domestic violence as well as increasing economic empowerment through practical training

• Ensuring that the rights of women in the community are respected and that they have access to legal services