Non-governmental association “Radislava”

legal assistance / home violence / harassment / feminism

Belarus. Minsk

Coverage: Belarus 

Type: NGO/NPO/Social Enterprise

Description: NGO Radislava was established in 2002 by women who had suffered from regular violence to help other women in a similar situation. Registration certificate №05/0344 dd. 04.10.2002; Department of Justice of Minsk city executive committee.

Over the past 5 years, NGO Radislava has established domestic violence shelter designed for 30 beds.

Specialists of the organization are national experts of UNFPA on prevention of domestic violence and in the last 5 years have participated in more than 20 workshops-trainings for law enforcement officials, social protection officials, health care workers, education workers, NGO officials in Minsk and other cities. During these 15 years Radislava has answered more than 12000 calls, conducted more than 5000 consultations, more than 319 women and children lived in the shelter, about 450 volunteers have been trained, several thousand of students participated in educational meetings.

NGO Radislava continues its operation in accordance with the Charter. Non-governmental association “Radislava” is a voluntary association of citizens having social nature of the activity. The organization consists of 25 people. 7 of them were elected to the governing body “Management board”, for the period of 2 years. 10 people in stuff and a number of volunteers, who takes part and support NGO in different activities. The quality of the social services is estimated based on the approved documentation (evaluation surveys, opinion records, post-rehabilitation monitoring), the demand of services (increase in the applicants’ number, word of mouth), regular training of experts. Management quality assessment is performed by regular meetings of the Management board, Coordinating councils, regular and timely reports to the controlling authorities and sponsors, availability of constant personnel, consistency of goals, tasks, growth directions and priorities.

Since 2012 Radislava takes an active part in the operation of the Network of noncommercial organizations to prevent domestic violence in Belarus.

At the moment the organization proved itself at city and republic level as a reliable partner in working on cases of domestic violence and preventive matters, holding information campaigns.

Aims and objectives: Radislava’s goal is to participate in the protection of female violence victims and organization of activities aimed at violence prevention. Radislava's direct services aimed to help our clients to break the cycle of gender violence and discrimination against them.

Main activities: NGO Radislava implemented a number of different in scale projects, which always were focused on legal (advocacy in each case of appeal to the Shelter) and psychosocial support to domestic abuse victims in Belarus; focused on strengthening voice of women who had experienced or are going through gender violence and  on support transformation process of Belarus towards democracy for women and other fragile group safety enhancement improvement; support to the public hearings relating to necessity of special Law adoption on domestic violence suppress in the Republic of Belarus, which was initiated and planned for 2016 by the Ministry of Internal affairs.

 
There are huge issues in Belarus relating to violence against women, however, measures taken by the state are formal and ineffective.

One out of every three women in Belarus experience physical violence by an intimate partner every year. 77% is the percentage of Belarusian women who will be victims of different forms of violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes. Every fourth suicide case among women is caused by domestic abuse in the country. 80% of domestic abuse cases in Belarus will never come to trial. Belarus still has no legislation against domestic violence.