Gender-sensitive policy responses required during crises to better protect women against gender-based violence, say participants at OSCE event

The impact of emergencies on violence against women and the need for gender-sensitive crisis responses were in focus at a special event organized on the margins of the third OSCE Gender Equality Review Conference on 27 October 2020.

The event was co-organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Secretariat’s Programme for Gender Issues with the support of the Albanian OSCE Chair.

“The fact that violence against women dramatically increases during emergencies should have been a lesson learned from past experience of emergencies such as other public health crises or natural disasters or conflicts,” said Elisabeth Duban, an independent gender expert who contributed to the event as a panelist. “Yet, policy responses at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic did not factor in this possibility, thus exposing millions of women to violence.”

Participants highlighted the long-term impact of violence which spans across generations.

“As this year marks the twentieth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (on Women, Peace and Security) we must remind ourselves of the transformative power of this instrument with its focus on prevention,” said Ambassador Katrina Katkina, Permanent Mission of Latvia to the UN, OSCE and other International Organizations in Vienna. “To use it consistently means to adopt it as a framework of reference for all emergencies where security and human rights are at stake.”

The event featured speakers from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, and the United Kingdom and provided a forum to civil society and delegations to share recommendations and lessons learned.

Participants noted that the OSCE participating States’ commitments provide a strong framework to address the invisibility of violence against women and girls. The 2018 OSCE Ministerial Council Decision on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women stresses that the persistence of violence against women and girls in all its forms impedes their full enjoyment of all human rights. At the same time, if women do not have a voice in decision-making, their challenges will inevitably be underestimated or kept invisible.

The key findings of the event will be shared in a dedicated report and disseminated.