Publications

The OSCE Mission in Kosovo invites women from all communities who are passionate about improving security, fostering dialogue, and collaborating with Women’s Security Networks to apply for a training on public dialogue facilitation, organized in co-operation with the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue.

The OSCE participating States have agreed to several commitments that specifically mandate the Organization’s structures to assist participating States with developing programmes aimed at preventing all forms of gender-based violence, as outlined in the 2004 Action Plan for the Promotion of Gender Equality, and OSCE Ministerial Council decisions from 2005, 2014 and 2018 which emphasize the importance of collecting and disseminating reliable, disaggregated data on violence against women, alongside efforts to criminalize gender-based violence. Femicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls, is a global phenomenon and represents the most extreme manifestation of violence against women. This report aims to assess the response to femicide across the 57 OSCE participating States, focusing on three key areas: the criminal justice response, the collection of comparable data, and the reporting and analysis of femicide.

Launched in 2021, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) CHANGE project employs a transformative approach to promoting gender equality, women’s human rights and safety. It integrates a broad range of elements from across ODIHR's mandate to address obstacles to achieving gender equality.

The advancement of gender equality aims to ensure equal rights and opportunities for women and men, as well as the just distribution of power and resources. Gender equality should enable both women and men to shape politics, and it is increasingly accepted that politics and decision-making processes should embrace the participation and contribution of the people they affect. To secure truly transformative change towards gender equality, there is now an urgent need to engage male politicians meaningfully in gender equality work, forging more just and equitable political institutions that work for all.

The OSCE invites you to apply for the fourth edition of the EmPOWER Local Women Politicians Programme. If you are you a woman currently holding a leadership position at the local level or an aspiring politician eager to advance your career – this programme is for you. Thirty successful applicants who meet the qualification criteria will be selected to participate. Please send your application by 16 March 2025 (23:59).

The concept of a gender-sensitive parliament rests on mainstreaming gender equality right across the work of a parliament, including in its representative, legislative and oversight functions. This tool shows how parliamentary bodies for gender equality are one of the key gender mainstreaming mechanisms available to national parliaments, and assesses their role and function within parliaments.

In 2024 the OSCE Mission in BiH supported four committees of both houses of the Parliament of Federation of BiH4 in holding three thematic sessions on domestic violence. This collaboration was the result of a need for an increased and strategic approach towards the gender-based violence issue that needed an urgent respond and long-standing co-operation between the Mission and the key stakeholders and decision-makers.