“Do not pacify women with flowers once a year on International Women's Day, but engage with them at all times under gender equality,” says Rada Boric, Vice President of the European Women's Lobby who is currently in India as Guest of Honour for the UN Women and European Union National Conference on Gender Equality & Women's Empowerment to be held on Monday.
Ms Boric, who was listed by Forbes as one of the seven world's most powerful feminists, is widely known for her work with Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian rape survivors throughout the Bosnian war. One of the architects of the Centre for Women War Victims in Croatia, which is known for the assistance it gave victims of war to seek refuge and begin healing free from discrimination, she says that rape survivors do not merely need help, it is about support and the domino effect that can have. “The idea was to create groups were women support each other. The refugees in Croatia received only basics from the administration, so we put together one local person with one refugee, shared information, helped them get documents, but most of all worked on their grief. Sharing their grief made all the difference,” she said pointing out that in conflict situations, crimes against women are brushed aside as 'collateral damage', 'necessary targets' where raping the women is a way to get even with the male enemy. Rada was also actively involved in the anti-war campaign of Croatia.
Currently Director at the Centre for Women’s Studies, Zagreb, Croatia, the passionate women's rights activist feels that cases of violence against women are increasingly coming into public knowledge even in Europe as they are in India. She attributes this to increased reporting by women, more protocols and mechanisms in place, effective sensitization, and a friendly media.
However, she feels a lot more needs to be done on every sphere of women's empowerment and is working on increasing women's presence on corporate boards in her country, changing the value of care work mostly performed by women and involved in the Initiative for the Women’s Court for Former Yugoslavia. “Rights of women are declining in Europe and there is lack of equal participation of women in politics in most of the countries. It's all around culture, be it in India or Europe. We won't gain much if we don't engage with men and make them veer towards gender equality,” she says.
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