OSCE promotes active role of Ukraine’s law enforcers in supporting women who have experienced violence

On 6 March 2020, ahead of International Women’s Day, the OSCE dispatched two-thousand posters highlighting the need to stop violence against women to police stations all over Ukraine. The posters stress the important role that the police play in supporting and protecting women who have experienced violence.  The posters were produced as part of the “End the Silence” awareness-raising campaign which was implemented by the OSCE Secretariat’s Gender Section and supported by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine and the country’s National Police. 

The posters will serve as a useful reminder to law enforcers on the ground of the recently established procedures and regulations aimed at better protecting victims of domestic abuse.  

They are designed in a way that officers can fill in data relevant to their local communities with contact numbers of local social service providers, childcare and psychological support services and civil society organizations working in that community. Officers can refer survivors of violence to these providers for additional assistance. The posters also contain links to the recently published findings of the OSCE-led Survey on the Well-being and Safety of Women that covers Ukraine, among other countries, in South-Eastern Europe and Eastern Europe. 

More information about the OSCE-led survey and its results for Ukraine can be found at: https://www.osce.org/VAWsurvey/publications. The survey was implemented as part of a project funded by the European Union and supported by the United Nations Population Fund, UN Women and the United Nations Children Fund, as well as by the governments of Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Norway, the United States of America and Sweden.