GAMAG

News

Gamag Europe protests the arrests of feminists in Athens,…

Gamag Europe (GE) protests to the Greek government for the arrest of 14 women in November 25, with the pretext that all meetings are illegal, due to the Covid-19 measures.

The meeting was not massive, and all measures anti covid were observed by the women, as shown in the photos. And yet 14 women were taken to the police stations, kept for 5 hours and 11 of them were charged for illegal meeting. The trial will take place in a few months. Among the charged is one solidarian man.

Photos

Also, they imposed a fine of 300 euro to each, for the so called “unnecessary movement”.

Gamag demands the annulation of the fines and of the charges. Such authoritarian behaviours are another kind of violence against women, in the very day of 25 November, International Day against gender violence.

GAMAG Europe is a regional Chapter of the Global Alliance for Media and Gender, a global movement dedicated to promote gender equality in and through media.

Announcements

25 N: Gamag Europa (GE) i Strajk Kobiet sprzeciwiają…

Dnia 25 listopada przypada Międzynarodowy Dzień Eliminacji Przemocy wobec Kobiet. Z tej okazji członkowie GAMAG (Światowej Koalicji na rzecz Płci i Mediów) w Europie wyrażają swoją solidarność z kobietami w Polsce, zjednoczonymi pod sztandarem Strajku Kobiet w obronie swojego prawa do samostanowienia.

Jedną z form przemocy wobec kobiet jest odmawianie im dostępu do odpowiedniej i przystępnej opieki medycznej w zakresie zdrowia seksualnego i reprodukcyjnego, włączając w to prawo do decyzji o zajściu w ciążę i jej utrzymaniu. Dostęp do aborcji jest częścią kompleksowej opieki medycznej i podstawowym prawem człowieka. Mimo to, polski rząd po raz kolejny podjął decyzję o ograniczeniu polskim kobietom dostępu do usług z zakresu zdrowia reprodukcyjnego i zakwestionował ich prawo do bezpiecznego macierzyństwa.

GAMAG Europa zdecydowanie sprzeciwia się takiemu traktowaniu kobiet przez polski rząd. Badania opinii publicznej wskazują, iż 70% Polaków popiera Strajk Kobiet oraz ma świadomość nieetycznego charakteru zaostrzania prawa aborcyjnego w Polsce, które w efekcie zmusza kobiety do kontynuowania ciąży w przypadku ciężkich wad wrodzonych płodu.

Dlatego też GAMAG Europa wyraża swoje poparcie dla Strajku Kobiet w Polsce. Próba pozbawienia kobiet ich praw i swobód obywatelskich w czasach tak trudnych dla Polski, Europy i świata w związku z pandemią COVID-19 jest przejawem najgorszych instynktów politycznych i społecznych. Wyrażamy naszą solidarność z Polkami, które protestują, organizują się i przekonują, że prawa kobiet, w tym prawo do wolności od przemocy, stanowią podstawę dobrobytu całego społeczeństwa.

Obserwujemy również z niepokojem przemoc policji wobec protestujących oraz rosnącą brutalność wobec kobiet, osób niebinarnych oraz LGBT w przestrzeni publicznej w Polsce. Wydarzenia te są niepokoją zwłaszcza w świetle zamiaru wypowiedzenia przez polski rząd konwencji antyprzemocowej. Ten europejski dokument, mający na celu zwalczanie przemocy wobec kobiet, to pierwsza tego typu prawnie wiążąca umowa na świecie, zaś jej wypowiedzenie byłoby znaczącym krokiem wstecz w zakresie zapobiegania, ścigania oraz eliminacji przemocy wobec kobiet w Polsce. Postrzegamy ten fakt jako kolejną decyzję polskiego rządu legitymizującą przemoc wobec kobiet na wszystkich płaszczyznach.

GAMAG Europa wyraża pełne poparcie dla postulatów Strajku Kobiet w Polsce i wzywa polski rząd do poparcia działań zmierzających do eliminacji przemocy wobec kobiet, a także do zapewnienia kobietom praw seksualnych i reprodukcyjnych. Zważywszy, że równouprawnienie płci jest jedną z podstawowych wartości Unii Europejskiej, wzywamy przewodniczącą Komisji Europejskiej Ursulę von der Leyen do potępienia podejmowanych przez polski rząd prób zaostrzenia prawa aborcyjnego w Polsce, wypowiedzenia konwencji antyprzemocowej, a także legitymizacji przemocy policji wobec protestujących i dziennikarzy w Polsce jako bezpośredniego ataku na wolność słowa i wolność prasy.

Greta Gober, przedstawicielka Europejskiego Komitetu Koordynacyjnego GAMAG w Polsce i wiceprzewodnicząca IAWRT; Joanna Warecha, członkini GAMAG Europa, polska dziennikarka, reporterka i działaczka na rzecz praw człowieka.

tłum. Dominika Dittwald

News

25N: Gamag Europe and the Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike)…

As 25 November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women members of the Global Alliance on Gender and Media in Europe express solidarity with women in Poland, united under the banner of Women’s Strike (Strajk Kobiet) in defense of their right to self-determination.

Violence against women can take the form of denying women access to affordable and adequate sexual and reproductive health care, including the right to choose whether and when one becomes pregnant and decides to continue with the pregnancy. Access to abortion is part and parcel of comprehensive health services, fundamental human right! Yet, the Polish government once again decided to restrict women in Poland from having access to reproductive health services and challenged their right to safe motherhood.

GAMAG Europe expresses firm opposition to this treatment of women by the Polish government. Opinion polls show that as many as 70% of Poles support Women’s Strike and understand the unethical nature of the attempt to tighten abortion law in Poland, in effect forcing women to continue pregnancies in cases when fetuses have severe congenital defects.

That is why GAMAG Europe supports Women’s Strike in Poland. Attempting to deprive women of their rights and civil liberties at a time so difficult for Poland, Europe and the world as the COVID -19 pandemic is an expression of the worst political and social instincts. We stand in solidarity with Poles who are protesting, organizing and arguing that women’s rights, including the right to freedom from violence, are fundamental to the wellbeing of the whole society.

It is also with great concern we observe police violence against the protesters and the increased brutality against women, non-binary and LGBT people in public spaces in Poland. These developments are all the more terrifying in light of the Polish government’s attempt to revoke the Anti-Violence Convention. This European treaty aimed at combating violence against women, is the first legally binding treaty of its kind in the world and leaving the Convention would be a major setback in the prevention, prosecution and elimination of violence against women in Poland. We see this as yet another decision of the Polish government to legitimize violence against women at all levels.

GAMAG Europe expresses full support for the demands of the Women’s Strike in Poland and calls on the Polish government to support work on the elimination of violence against women, as well as ensuring women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Bearing in mind that gender equality is a principal value of the EU we call Ursula von der Leyen, the President of European Commission, to condemn the attempts made by the Polish government to restrict abortion rights in Poland, revoke the Anti-Violence Convention, as well as legitimize police violence against the protesters and journalists in Poland, a direct attack on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Greta Gober, representative of GAMAG Europe Coordination Committee from Poland and Vice-President of IAWRT; Joanna Warecha, member of GAMAG Europe from Poland, journalist, reporter and human’s rights activist.

Stockholm and Warsaw, November 25, 2020

Events

Online presentation of the AGEMI web platform

The Advancing Gender Equality in Media Industries (AGEMI) team invites you to an online presentation of the AGEMI web platform.

November 23, 2020 // 15.30 – 17.00 – CET
Register for the online event HERE

In the run-up to Beijing+25, understanding the role that the media play in perpetuating and challenging global gender inequalities is crucial if we want to change the picture. Come and join the AGEMI team in this virtual event!

You will be able to explore the resources openly accessible on the AGEMI web platform. We shall provide you with a road-map to navigate the platform and rehearse possible scenarios of use for advocacy, teaching and learning.

Speakers from the AGEMI team:

Pamela Morinière (European Federation of Journalists EFJ)
Karen Ross (University of Newcastle, UK)
Claudia Padovani (University of Padova, Italy)
Maria Edström (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)
Elena Chiaberge (COPEAM)

AGEMI resources include: Resources Bank of Good Practices – GEMPractices; Online learning materials – GEMLearn;Interviews with media professionals – GEMTalks; Encounters – GEMConnect; App – ACT (Assess, Challenge, Transform) – GEMApp

AGEMI project was co-funded by the EU and aims to provide media professionals, researchers, students, and media educators with a range of resources which can develop awareness around issues of gender and equality in the media, as well as examples of good practice which could be embedded in their own organisations and working practices.

News

Fighting gender-based violence during the pandemic

Gamag Europe, the European regional chapter of GAMAG, the World Alliance on Media and Gender has been invited to moderate the online event Fighting Gender-based violence in the Four Motors for Europe, that has taken place last Wednesday as a side event of the II Congress on the Eradication of Gender-Based Violence, organized by the Catalan Women’s Institute. It was our colleague from GE, Elena Tarifa, who moderated this panel on the third day of this online congress edition, with more than 1600 participants during the three days it lasted.

This II Congress on the Eradication of Gender-Based Violence had the specific goal of highlighting the impact of the pandemics and lock-down from the gender-based violence point of view, as well as the strategies, alliances and learnings that have been generated among different social agents in the time of Covid-19.

This side event then pretended to share experiences on the way the pandemic has affected the services and actions addressed by the the four regions part of the Four Motors of Europe alliance to fight gender-based violences and which are the learnings and challenges in this area now

The Four Motors For Europe is one of the most stable interregional cooperation network in Europe, signed in 1998 by 4 of the most highly industrialised and research oriented regions in the EU: Auvergne-Rhröne-Alpes in France, Baden-Würtemberg in Germany, Catalonia in Spain and Lombardy in italy with the aim of increasing the economic, scientific, social and cultural potential of these territories and actively participate in the European construction, mainly through joint positions.

Since september 2020, Catalonia holds the presidency of the Four Motors for Europe network. The program of the Catalan presidency is based in the 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda, as well as in the European Green Deal and it includes the development of 30 specific initiatives, one of them this side event.

Laura Martínez, president of the Institut Català de les Dones, the organizer of the Congress, said at the end of the conference that: “We can only overcome the pandemic and any other future threat if we invest in the promotion of human rights, gender equality and sustainability. ”. She added that “the pandemic has aggravated structural gender inequalities.”

The opening of the event was made by Elisabeth Nebreda, Secretary of Foreign Action and EU, of the Catalonia Government.

Then there was the turn of Núria Ramon, director of the Catalan Women’s Institute, who explained how the services for women suffering gender-based violence had to be adapted to lockdown in Catalonia, and of Andrea Bosch, from the coordination office of the working group of autonomous shelters for women in Baden-Württemberg, who exposed the complexity of co-financing for work in this region “a growing lack of safe spaces and places for women and their children, the complex reorganization as well as all the processes and restrictions imposed by the pandemic. During this time the ability to lower the risk of infection is being reduced. We are going to look for new spaces such as rental apartments and other alternatives.

Anna Lorenzetti, coordinator of “Gender violence: legal and psyco-social issue project” and associate professor in Constitutional Law at the University of Bergamo explained the difficult situation they had to go through in their region, one of the most impacted by the pandemic, and how women suffering domestic violence could contact with the support services by giving a secret code in pharmacies. Finally, Cécile Langeois, regional deputy director in charge of women’s rights and equality in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, took the floor and talk about how they establish a specific phone line “Ne frappe pas” to denounce domestic violence during lockdown and expressed the need of working in network with other regions in Europe so to eradicate gender-based violence and face the effects of the pandemic on it.

Also participating during these days in the Congress was Rita Segato, an Argentine anthropologist and feminist activist. This researcher is known for her work focused on gender issues in indigenous peoples and Latin American communities, sexist violence and gender relations, racism and colonialism. She affirmed that gender relations are a field of power and that it is a mistake to speak of sexual crimes and not crimes of power, domination and punishment. He coined the term femigenocide to describe crimes committed against women that achieve the degree of against humanity or genocide and that do not prescribe. The sociology professor at the UB, Núria Vergés, also spoke about the crisis of the priests and its impact in times of pandemic.