Knowledge

Here you can find links on academic articles, books, research and analytics. They can be useful for journalists, researchers and activists digging into the topic.

Belarus in Social Institutions & Gender Index 2019

The SIGI 2019 shows that clear progress has been made with political commitments to eliminate gender inequality. New legislation enhances equality and abolishes discriminatory laws, including through gender-transformative programmes and action plans. However, political commitments, legal reforms and gender-sensitive programmes in many countries are still not being translated into real changes for women and girls.

Non-territorial spaces of Belarusian political nomadism

Author:
Viktorija Rusinaitė

In Belarus the state systematically hinders the development of civil society. NGOs have difficulties registering, functioning and sustaining their organisations. Some individuals related to the civil sector are persecuted, fined, imprisoned. Therefore a number of NGOs are registered abroad and civil society activists move with them to continue their work on Belarusian issues. In this article we aim to define people who left Belarus in order to work for Belarus as Belarusian Political Nomads, using the notion of transnational subjectivity to explore their migration strategies.

Female Genital Mutilation of Girls in Dagestan (Russian Federation). Report based on the results of a qualitative study on female genital mutilation performed on girls

Author:
Yu. A. Antonova, S. V. Siradzhudinova

This report pursues a mainly practical goal: to draw attention to the practice of FGM in Dagestan in order to mobilise concern for the problem among various sectors and organisations, whose combined efforts have the potential to eradicate the practice in the region. The report’s findings are based on interviews conducted in February-March 2016 with women respondents who have undergone such operations in childhood, as well as interviews with local experts in Dagestan. An analysis of the interviews with the female respondents also illustrates how women living in Dages- tan’s mountainous villages perceive and justify the practice of FGM. Final- ly, the report presents what is probably the first legal analysis of the prac- tice under Russian national law, with reference to international law and standards.

Monitoring report “Problems of gender-based violence in the conflict zone” on results of monitoring visit of human rights activists to the ATO area

Author:
Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union

The monitoring visit has been conducted by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union in summer 2015 to the city of Kramatorsk together with Women’s Information Consultative Center. It is aimed at collecting data on gender-based violence in the conflict area (occupied and liberated territories, during the conflict and after it) in order to summarize information, develop recommendations to relevant structures for victims’ protection. Also, the cases on human rights violations were transferred to the UHHRU lawyers to form the claims to the European Court of Human Rights.

Feminism in Post-Soviet Belarus

Author:
Elena Gapova

How does a society with a lengthy period of socialist experience in its recent past think of the oppression of women? Would it recognize the issue at all? How would it see the origin of this oppression? Finally, what needs to be done for the world to become a better place? The way these issues have been theorized in the former socialist region was quite different from how they were seen in the West.