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Last weekend, we organised the Progressive Women's Summit of Eastern Europe, together with the UK Labour Party and the Social Democratic Platform in Ukraine. Women from four Eastern European countries - Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and Georgia - came together in Kyiv, to share experiences and reflect together on possible solutions to the challenges they face.
Agreements
It soon became clear that those challenges in different countries had a lot in common. As soon as someone started talking about the situation with women's rights in their own country, someone else immediately said, "You're talking about Georgia now, but it might as well be Ukraine!". Trainers Jamila Aanzi (Netherlands), Karolina Leakovic (Croatia) and Nan Sloane (UK) then led the discussions. In particular, it was about identifying challenges and then looking at how different women or their organisations could best help each other. We discussed gender-related violence, the gender pay gap, the (under)representation of women in leadership positions in the private sector and in politics, and gender stereotypes. We concluded with an exchange of concrete ideas and solutions in the different countries that can be adopted - or at least used - in other countries.
At the end of the seminar, we concluded that too little is happening in terms of communication and cooperation among women's organisations in Eastern Europe. And that while there are many active women who mostly face the same challenges and obstacles. A first step has been taken, but there were also plenty of ideas on how to take this process further. Hopefully, the FMS and UK Labour will be able to help with this!
