Focus AreasThe International Women's Program aims to sustain and support key networks that advance women’s rights at the regional level. The following regional networks have received support:
Combating Violence Against Women in the Middle East & North Africa
In partnership with OSI’s Middle East & North Africa Initiative, IWP co-funded V-Day Karama (which means “dignity” in Arabic), a network of NGOs from nine countries that are developing anti-violence strategies particular to the realities of women in the region and working to elevate the status of Arab women as leaders and experts. Karama advocates on the causes and effects of violence across key areas such as health, politics, education, religion, law and the judicial system, and media.
IWP also supported national-level Karama members. In Jordan, Karama members submitted the country’s first CEDAW shadow report, committing the government to criminalizing domestic violence within the next two years. In addition, IWP funded KAFA ("enough") Violence & Exploitation, a member of Karama in Lebanon, which seeks to mitigate violence against women and children through advocacy, raising awareness, providing social and legal services, and mobilizing and encouraging debate among religious leaders, women’s NGOs, and others. One of their projects aims to amend discriminatory "personal status codes" against women and children.
Reproductive Health & Rights in Central & Eastern Europe
In 2007, IWP funded ASTRA, the Federation for Women and Family Planning, a regional organization established in 1992, to support its youth initiatives encouraging a new generation of activists around sexual and reproductive rights and health issues.
The ASTRA Youth network has worked to elaborate recommendations on sex education aimed at national governments’ health/education ministers in Central & Eastern Europe. The campaign was targeted at youth in response to the damaging effects of abstinence-only based sex education and ineffective HIV/AIDS prevention programs. ASTRA Youth wrote a manifesto and mobilized support for its concerns to draw policy-makers’ attention to the issues.
Spin-Off of the Network Women’s Program
The International Gender Policy Network (IGPN) is a membership-based network established in autumn 2005 as a spin-off of the OSI Network Women’s Program. The network aims to strengthen and foster the policy work and impact of member organizations in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, and to ensure the sustainability of the regional women’s movement. IGPN seeks to ensure accountability of national, regional, and global actors in the area of women’s rights and gender equality; secure equal opportunities for women in employment and to access resources; combat violence against women; promote social inclusion; and foster gender mainstreaming. IGPN will achieve these goals via direct advocacy, as well as by reinforcing the advocacy and strengthening the capacity of its members.
