Women’s NGOs from Serbia supported WAVE’s initiative to protect the key concepts of the Istanbul Convention – Ženske NVO iz Srbije podržale WAVE inicijativu za zaštitu ključnih koncepata Istanbulske konvencije

May 3, 2018. – A letter from women’s NGOs to support key concepts of the Istanbul Convention was sent to the General Secretary of the Council of Europe from the WAVE office last week. The goal was to gather more than 333 organizations to provide counter-resistance and rapid reaction to a retrograde and potentially dangerous initiative that came from 333 anti-feminist individuals and organizations from 9 countres from Europe.

Namely, in their letter, it is demanded that the unclear concept of „gender“ should be replaced by clear expressions „men“ and „women“, in order to suppress the protection of women from violence. However, most women’s NGOs think that organizations that have sent this disputed letter want to deny the development of a legislative framework at the level of Europe, which slowly provides recognition and protection of the rights of different gender identities. If we look at the list of organizations that have signed a disputed letter, we can see that there is a series of pro-life (anti abortion) and right-wing organizations of individuals and companies that create a broad coalition against women’s and related human rights, hardly won through a longstanding fighting by feminist.

At the level of Europe, around 1100 organizations gathered around the WAVE initiative, bringing together the visibility of the feminist movement and the defense of the concepts it advocates. Gathering around this emergency initiative was agreed upon at the last WAVE meeting of the Advisory Board.

Pre nedelju dana je iz kancelarije WAVE-a Generalnom sekretaru Saveta Evrope poslato pismo ženskih NVO za podršku ključnim konceptima Istanbulske konvencije. Cilj je bio okupljanje više od 333 organizacije, kako bi se obezbedila protivteža i brza reakcija na retrogradnu i potencijalno opasnu inicijativu koja je došla od 333 anti-feminističkih pojedinaca i organizacija iz 9 zemalja Evrope.

Naime, u njihovom pismu se traži da se nejasan koncept roda zameni jasnim izrazima muškarci i žene, kako bi se, navodno, zaista obezebedila zaštita žena od nasilja. Međutim, većina ženskih NVO misle da organizacije koje su poslale sporno pismo žele da uskrate razvoj zakonodavnog okvira na nivou Evrope, koji polako omogućava prepoznavanje i odbranu prava različitih rodnih identiteta. Ukoliko se pogleda spisak organizacija koje su potpisale sporno pismo, vidi se da se radi o nizu pro-life (protiv abortusa) i organizacija desničarske ideologije, pojedinaca i kompanija, koje stvaraju široku koaliciju kontra ženskim i srodnim ljudskim pravima, za koje se ženski pokret teško izborio i tako širio granice slobode.

Na nivou Evrope, oko WAVE inicijative okupilo se čak 1166 organizacija, što je doprielo vidljivosti feminističkog pokreta i odbrani koncepata za koje se zalaže. Okupljanje oko ove hitne inicijative dogovoreno je na poslednjem WAVE sastanku Savetodavnog odbora.