Women’s NGO addressing VAW challenging the worldwide gender neutrality backlash against women’s rights （婦女NGO闡述針對女性暴力如何挑戰世界性別平權及侵害女性權利）

Violence against women is gender based violence directed at women because they are women or affects them disproportionately, as the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and other international instruments state. Despite this knowledge, there is a concerning tendency in Europe and internationally, to deny the gendered nature of violence against women and to favour gender neutral definitions and approaches. Some ultra conservative forces even go as far as to oppose the term gender as socially constructed roles, they call it “gender ideology” and want to restore the “natural order” between the sexes. Family values are set against women’s rights and feminists working against violence are accused of “destroying the family”. In some countries in Europe ultra conservative groups have launched campaigns to hamper the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention). These are alarming developments and they also concern the situation of women’s shelters and other women’s support services. Government policies and action plans are influenced by this developments and the provision of women specific services is questioned. Women’s shelters and support services have to argue and fight – again – for the existence of women only services. But the development is not uniform, campaigns such as the ‘MeToo movement, have raised awareness on the magnitude of violence women and girls experience in all areas of society and all regions of the world, and states and governments cannot deny the problem anymore. International solidarity of women is growing and international legally binding instruments such as the Istanbul Convention emphasize the importance of gender specific approaches and services for the empowerment of women and girls.
The workshop is aiming at discussing the backlash the women’s movement is facing, at identifying strategies to counter it and to form and strengthen alliances worldwide to defend women’s human rights and gender equality.