Meeting in Sarajevo
As part of the project investigating the incidence and forms of economic violence against women in intimate relationships (EUROPEAID/131114/C/ACT/MULTI), the second meeting of five partner organizations was held. The organization is located in Sarajevo Rights for everyone! coordinated the two-day work - the first day was devoted to the implementation of the project, and the second day was dedicated to agreeing on the mode of networking and topics that the newly envisioned network should deal with in the future.
In all five countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia), qualitative research has begun – at least one focus group was held with women victims of violence, and in some, a group of women who believe they have never experienced violence was also interviewed. The problems women face are generally very similar – women know very little about and think about their rights. In the name of love, it seems inappropriate to talk about property, so it was observed that among women who reported physical violence, we very often find very clear forms of economic violence – partners live, for example, in the house or apartment of his parents who never even thought of transferring part of the property to their son and his family. Some women took out loans, went into debt, received money from their parents and invested in the space where the family lived, only to find, at the moment when they no longer wanted to live in violence, that they had no rights to part of the property because it actually belonged exclusively to the parents all along, not to the partner. In several cases, employed women left their money entirely to their partners, and were generally left with no means to meet their own needs. One woman said she had to find ways to earn money to buy sanitary pads. General poverty makes the economic situation of the victims even more difficult.
As the project envisaged a quantitative survey on a representative sample only in Croatia (due to limited funds), the partners in Serbia contacted UNDP and received a very promising response. UNDP is even interested in financing the survey in other countries where it has local offices, and they would like to participate in the development of the questionnaire.
If the agreements are successful, we could indeed have relevant and comparable data for at least four countries. The only problem is that UNDP does not have an office in Bulgaria, so our partners from the Bulgarian Foundation for Gender Research have to look for another donor.
