Women’s Human Rights Training Institute (WHRTI)
The first in the region Women’s Human Rights Training Institute is the result of the joint Project and cooperation between the Network of East-West Women (NEWW) and the Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation (BGRF)
The overarching objectives of the Institute are to:
- Articulate regional and country level litigation strategies on women’s human rights in CEE/NIS;
- Build the capacity of lawyers in CEE/NIS to litigate women’s human rights cases at the country and regional levels;
- Support on-going women’s rights litigation efforts in CEE/NIS and seed new women’s rights litigation;
- Facilitate the development of strategic relationships among the women’s human rights litigation community and mainstream human rights groups undertaking human rights litigation in CEE/NIS.
The Institute is a first-of-its-kind endeavor in CEE/NIS, and in the long-term will contribute towards the development of a new area of jurisprudence currently underdeveloped and underutilized.
The Institute will be convened every six months and include the same group of participants throughout the two-year project period. Specific litigation activities will be both continued and launched by participants between the Institute sessions, supported by NEWW, its partner organizations, and the Institute expert committee. In terms of substantive issue areas, the Institute will focus on:
- Violence against women;
- Reproductive rights and sexual health;
- Employment discrimination.
The intended outcomes of the Institute are:
- Regional women’s rights litigation strategies;
- A network of trained lawyers undertaking women’s rights test cases at the country, regional, and international levels;
- Better links between women’s rights litigators in CEE/NIS and mainstream human rights litigation initiatives;
- Educational materials, readers, and teaching curricula that participants can use in their home countries and that can be widely translated and disseminated throughout CEE/NIS.
Lecturers from CEE/NIS, Western Europe and the U.S. will be invited to conduct trainings and lectures. NEWW will draw on NEWW’s Legal Fellow Alumnae Network and U.S.- based partner NGOs as additional lecturers and resource people. Partners on the project are organizations as Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, Interights, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, etc.
Participants’ profile:
- practicing lawyers or legal counselors from CEE/NIS;
- demonstrated commitment to gender and women’ s rights;
- relationship with a women’ s legal rights NGO or institution;
- demonstrated 2-year commitment with work in between the sessions;
- ability to clearly articulate her motivation and the women’ s rights situation in her country;
- demonstrated ability to think creatively for using the law for women’ s rights;
- commitment for team work
Sessions’ outline:
- I Session (4 days) - Introductory session on Women’s Human Rights in the context of International Human Rights Law- 4-8 October 2004
- II Session (4.5 days) - Presentation of the 3 substantive topics of the Institute (1.5 days each) - Violence against Women, Reproductive Rights and Gender Discrimination in Employment- February- 2005
- III Session (4.5 days)- Practical session: Cases undertaken by the participants and Moot-Court session (focused on the regional HR mechanisms)- May 2005 (tentatively)
- IV Session (4.5 days) – Practical session: Cases undertaken by the participants and Moot Court session (focused on the universal HR mechanisms)- September 2005 (tentatively).
For contacts: Genoveva Tisheva – Managing Director of the Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation and Teodora Tsanovska – WHRTI Coordinator
04 October 2004
