RCNI’s Clíona Saidléar is one of Ireland’s representatives at the EU organisations Women against Violence Europe and attended WAVE’s Annual Conference in Madrid in October. RCNI has a long relationship with WAVE and our European sister DSGBV organisations.

The conference theme this year was ‘Institutional violence and its impact on women’s human rights across Europe’

The get-together focused on the pervasive impact of institutional violence on women and girls, the different forms in which this violence manifests, and the key role women’s specialist services have in denouncing and undoing this type of violence.

The conference took a critical look at institutional violence and how NGOs like ourselves can hold states accountable.

 

 

This theme strongly mirrors RCNI areas of concern such as the child victim of sexual and domestic violence within the family and how various institutional responses such as child protection, CASP and Family Courts function fail the children they are supposed to be helping.  

The patterns of institutional response and impact are remarkably similar across all jurisdictions, making this shared space and conversation incredibly valuable.

Plenary speakers included UN VAW special rapporteur Reem Alsalem, Grevio member Biljana Brankovic, Ana Peláez Nerváez from CEDAW and María Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos Feminist Mexican anthropologist, academic and politician who shared her incredible years of experience and wisdom with us.

Along with our Spanish parters we WAVE also took the opportunity to lobby the Spanish EU presidency on the new VAW Directive which is currently being negotiated.