Strasbourg. To celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November 2021) and under the aegis of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Europe, a high-level panel was organised during the meeting. The GEC also approved the Draft Recommendation on protecting the rights of migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking women and girls. The text aims to promote the integration of a gender equality perspective in migration, integration and asylum policies- in order to better respond to the needs and challenges faced by all migrant women and girls. It will be transmitted to the Committee Ministers shortly for discussion and final adoption.

The Council of Europe Recommendation on preventing and combating sexism, adopted in 2019, is now available in 26 languages, in addition to the official English and French versions.

The Council of Europe Project in Armenia organised two sessions of online training (in September and in November) for journalists representing different TV channels and online and print media of Armenia. They discussed the principles of media reporting on the topics of violence against women and domestic violence.
Police officers of Armenia participated in a two-day interactive training where they learned about gender-based violence and how it affects women disproportionately.

In October 2021, a group of 40 judge candidates from Azerbaijan were trained on the main standards in the field of violence against women and domestic violence, including the Istanbul Convention. In November, a delegation of representatives from the Azerbaijani state authorities visited Georgia to hear about the Georgian experience of implementing the Istanbul Convention. In December, the Council of Europe in co-operation with the State Committee on Family, Women and Children Affairs organised a workshop on gender stereotypes and violence against women in Gokhmukh village school and four workshops in the regions of Gabala, Zagatala and Shaki.
Additionally, the project delivered the third and last of a series of online webinars dedicated to explaining specific articles of the Istanbul Convention: on Article 16 - programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence and on Article 52 of the Istanbul Convention - emergency barring orders in situations of domestic violence.

A group of 17 police officers and staff members of the human rights protection and quality monitoring Department of the Georgian Ministry of internal affairs received their certificates of completion of the HELP course on violence against women and domestic violence on 28 October. “We are dealing with the cases of violence against women and domestic violence on a daily basis, which gave us intensive practical knowledge. However, international experience and standards we have learned throughout the course are highly important to our work. Despite our busy work schedule, the online format allowed us to be actively involved in the training process” said Giorgi Katsitadze, Chief Investigator of the Patrol Police.

The members of the Steering Committee acknowledged the project results achieved in phase II and expressed their commitment to continue the joint work to increase capacities of legal professionals to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence (VAW/DV) and to raise awareness against it. Partners also agreed to enhance the quality of support and social services for victims of VAW and DV and for perpetrator programmes. The next project Steering Committee meeting will take place in June 2022.
 *All reference to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions, or population, in this text shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.

of Moldova for 2021-2024. It will act as a roadmap to support the Moldovan authorities in their first steps of implementation of the Istanbul Convention.

 “The Istanbul Convention is not just about domestic violence: how will the ratification of the Istanbul Convention strengthen the prevention and counteraction of various types of gender-based violence in Ukraine?”. The project updated the publication “Combating violence against women and domestic violence: A practical guide for police officers”. It provides Ukrainian national police with comprehensive guidance on how to address cases of violence against women and domestic violence according to international standards and best practices.

women's rights specialists and staff from the Council of Europe for an online study visit on 21 October. Several cases from the European Court on Human Rights on violence against women were presented and discussed with participants, analysing precedent set with the Court’s case-law. The Bulgarian working group is tasked to develop a case management guide for Bulgarian judges and prosecutors in 2022, under the project “Prevention and Combating violence against women and domestic violence” of the National Institute of Justice.

open to applications of non-governmental organisations registered in Turkey. The purpose of this call is to select up to four proposals from national and local non-governmental organisations for projects supporting women in their access to justice and increasing their legal awareness. The proposed applications should focus on empowering women as right-holders and supporting them in their access to justice, especially women in vulnerable or disadvantaged situations, such as victims of gender-based violence, refugees, migrants, Roma women and girls, and women living in rural areas.

International Roma Women’s Conference “Protecting the Human Rights and Dignity of Roma and Traveller Women in times of crises”, held at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg to fight violence against women.