Funding organization: UNHCR Bulgaria
Duration: 01/10/2022 – 31/12/2022
Beneficiaries: Refugees, asylum seekers and beneficiaries of temporary protection, women victims of or at-risk of gender-based violence
Overall objective: Gender-based violence is still a particularly underrated issue, especially among the refugee communities. The image of women is still stereotyped, which doesn’t allow society to open a dialogue or even to discover certain concepts, such as femicide. Domestic violence is a widespread problem generally ignored by the authorities, who can’t rely on nationwide collected data, as many of the victims refuse to file a report.
Supported by UNHCR, the “Future is a Woman” project pursues three objectives:
• Prevention: raising awareness and passing on a culture of gender equality to men, women, teenagers, unaccompanied minors refugees, asylum seekers and beneficiaries of temporary protection, thanks to our expert psychologists, social workers and cultural mediators;
• Evaluation: assessing the overall situation among beneficiaries on the phenomenon of GBV, its perception and the challenges encountered by the victims, in order to provide reliable information and update local data for our organization, partner NGOs, authorities and civil society;
• Emergency care: providing immediate response and protection to victims of gender-based violence.
Activities: The project provides activities related to the immediate care and support to victims or women at-risk of gender-based violence or in vulnerable situations. This is being accomplished through social consultation, distribution of food and hygiene supplies, as well as medical and psychological care. In the meantime, the project allows our organization to conduct a study among our beneficiaries on the carrying out of acts of GBV among refugee‘ and asylum seekers‘ communities, as well as the implementation of prevention groups with men, women, teenagers, unaccompanied minors and children, on the topics of violence and gender equality.
If you have experienced or witnessed the carrying out of or attempt at an act of violence, do not hesitate to contact our teams for assistance via the form on the contact page (https://crw-bg.org/en/need-help/).
As part of our study on the commission of GBV in Bulgaria, if you are a victim of such and you would like to tell your story, completely anonymously, we invite you to fill out this questionnaire at the following link: (insert the link of the questionnaire in the appropriate language)
