In Romania, the Mobilise Against Sexism project supported by the Council of Europe has been implemented by the Romanian Women’s Lobby, EWL’s national coordination in the country.
The Romanian Women’s Lobby focused their campaign against sexism on different levels and towards different target groups, involving young girls from rural areas, university students and diasporas. The topics were often discussed during webinars and ranged from violence against women, to the impact of sexism on the life of public servants, and on particularly vulnerable groups. In parallel, the different impacts of sexism in various spheres were explained through Facebook posts on the organisation’s page.
First, young girls from rural areas and vulnerable groups near the city of Iasi in the Northeast of Romania participated in several meetings focused on topics regarding sexism. One of the focus areas of the meetings was the field of justice in relation to violence against women and girls; Participants took part in the quiz from Council of Europe’s Romanian landing page for the campaign and discussed new calendar created by the Romanian Women’s Lobby with caricatures including concrete examples of sexism in different areas of life.
The main conclusion for all involved was that we could all indeed feel safer and stronger if sexism and cyberviolence were tackled properly. Moreover, on 29 November 2020, a webinar on sexism in justice and sexism against women in politics was organized by Romanian Women’s Lobby with the support of MP Senator in Romanian Senate Juridical Committee Iulia Scantei. The related video reached 28000 views.
Furthermore, at the end of October of 2020, almost 50 facilitators helped organise webinars at national level. The webinars focused on several important issues, including:
- Learning how to apply gender lenses when working with vulnerable groups;
- How private and public life can be impacted by sexist approaches and situations;
- How important it is for public servants to understand they need to be the models for the people they serve in their communities.
In another webinar, young students at “Petre Andrei” University of Iasi were also debating the sexist examples that badly influence the work of public servants in relation with their constituents.
In parallel, Romanian women from diaspora came together on 1 December in a webinar held on the topic of the impact of sexism on migrant women working in different fields. From health workers to entrepreneurs, cultural and political environments manifest sexism differently and affect women in different ways, and traditional and social media have an important impact on the behaviour of the general public in this sense. The online event reached 1205 persons.
The results of the recent local and parliamentary elections in Romania were also the topic of a specific webinar, as they showed an extremely low number of women on the election lists. The webinar highlighted the statistics, results and sexist attacks against women candidates and women politicians in general, and specifically during electoral times.
To learn more about the Romanian Women’s lobby initiatives around the project, visit their Facebook page (in Romanian).
To learn more about EWL’s collaborative Mobilise against sexism project and its implementation in other European countries click here.
To learn more about the Council of Europe’s campaign See it. Name it. Stop it. click here.
