In the begining of February 2018, Gender Alternatives was accepted as a member of Girls Not Brides global network. Girls Not Brides is a global partnership of more than 900 civil society organisations from over 95 countries committed to ending child marriage and enabling girls to fulfil their potential.

Members are based throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. The network shares the conviction that every girl has the right to lead the life that she chooses and that, by ending child marriage, we can achieve a safer, healthier and more prosperous future for all.

Stronger together, Girls Not Brides members bring child marriage to global attention, build an understanding of what it will take to end child marriage and call for the laws, policies and programmes that will make a difference in the lives of millions of girls.

Visit their website: www.girlsnotbrides.org

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10 associations working against Trafficking in Human Beings. Every place where there is a violation of rights is the “South of the World”. Especially the rights of women and young girls, not yet adults. The desire to migrate abroad trying to build a better future is a profitable occasion for whoever recruits victims; at any cost and to obtain a high profit. It is a modern product of distorted global economy and the extreme demonstration of gender violence on a global scale. It is contemporary slavery and forced migration. The elimination of all forms of Human Trafficking is part of the European Union political agenda as well as of the Global Agenda. The achievement of three of the 17 objectives of Sustainable Development is bound to Human Trafficking eradication, in every country, without any exception.

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At the end of August 2017, Gender Alternatives conducted a second expert meeting for creation of an online simulation game for prevention of sexual violence and harassment against young people. The event is part of a sequence of meetings involving women survivors and experts who work in the field of prevention of gender-based violence. In separate workshops, the GAF team worked with young peers to draft the narrative of the game. Such parallel meetings are held in other 5 countries, part of the CONVEY Project - Counteracting sexual violence and harassment: Engaging Youth in schools in digital education on gender stereotyping.

The discussions focused on two plots which reveal the stories of young people who became victims of sexual violence. These storylines are developed beforehand by the youth peer groups, organized in the project countries. The task of the expert group was to see whether the stories reflect realistically the sexual violence problem and to what extent the plots break gender stereotypes.

The aims of the meetings are to create an online game that can unveil the factors linked to gender stereotypes and gender roles contributing to sexual violence and sexual harassment. The CONVEY team also will present awareness-raising videos (one per country) to be included in the online game and to be used as part of an advocacy campaign.

The project is co-funded by the Rights, Equality & Citizenship Programme of the European Union and it’s being implemented by organisations in 6 EU countries: CESIE (IT), The Smile of the Child (GR), Hope for Children (CY), Sexual Violence Centre Cork (IE), Gender Alternatives (BG), Westminster City Council (UK).

The Istanbul Convention is the first legally binding treaty in Europe that criminalises different forms of violence against women including physical and psychological violence, sexual violence, sexual harassment and rape, stalking, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, forced abortion and forced sterilization.

It emphasises and recognises that violence against women is a human rights violation, a form of discrimination against women and a cause and a consequence of inequality between women and men. The Convention requires the public authorities of State parties to adopt a set of comprehensive and multidisciplinary measures in a proactive fashion to prevent violence, protect its victims/survivors and prosecute the perpetrators. The Convention recognises that women experience multiple forms of discrimination and requires the State parties to ensure that its implementation is made without discrimination on any ground such as sex, gender, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, state of health, disability, marital status, migrant or refugee status or other. It also states that violence against women can never be justified in the name of culture, custom, religion, tradition nor so-called ‘honour’.

Read the full text of the Resolution here.