Combating violence against women through evidence-based law-making

Meeting

Date:: 19 May 2021
Location:: Online meeting (CET/GMT+1 time zone)
Organized by:: OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), OSCE Secretariat’s Gender Issues Programme (GIS), OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA)
Source:: OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, OSCE Secretariat
Fields of work:: Human rights, Gender equality

ODIHR will bring together members of parliaments from all around the OSCE region to discuss how to develop better and more efficient laws protecting women and girls from all forms of violence.

This webinar aims to:

provide a platform to exchange good practices, lessons learned and innovation in evidence-based law-making to prevent and combat violence against women and girls
raise awareness among parliamentarians of OSCE participating States of own tools and resources, including ODIHR’s legal reviews, assessments and guidelines, and the OSCE Secretariat’s guide on How to Use Survey Data to Prevent and Combat Violence against Women and Girls

Why it is important

Violence against women is one of the most widespread forms of human rights violations globally. Parliaments play a key role in adopting and improving laws so as to protect women and girls.

Audience

This event is open only to members of parliaments from OSCE participating States and their delegations to the OSCE, including the OSCE Partners for Co-operation.

Background

The OSCE Ministerial Council decisions on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women (2005, 2014 and 2018) demonstrate the organizational commitment in addressing violence against women and girls (VAWG) and call on the OSCE participating States to improve national legislation, policies and practices to combat violence, support women who experience violence and prevent VAWG through different measures. They also task the OSCE executive structures to assist participating States in implementing these commitments, including by cooperating with relevant international and regional organizations.

Further, OSCE commitments relating to democratically-made laws specify that legislation will be formulated and adopted as the result of an open process reflecting the will of the people, either directly or through their elected representatives.

OSCE/ODIHR has vast experience in providing legislative assistance to OSCE participating States through reviewing legislation in the area of gender equality and VAWG (www.legislationline.org).