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The Global Fund set out to the ancient lands of Noah’s Ark and the
region known as the Caucasus, which separates Europe from Asia, to meet
with women’s human rights organizations and understand what obstacles
they have faced since the Soviet Union disintegrated 15 years ago. As we
traveled, the beauty of the thousand-year-old churches and citadels
that surrounded our four-person delegation reinforced the sturdiness
and steadiness of our grantee partners.
Dozens of representatives of women’s rights groups at three
simultaneous national women’s forums described the obstacles women
encounter in their daily life and the imaginative efforts of women to
overcome them.
The problems were brought to life in our meetings with 130 grantees
in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia over two weeks: steeply rising
poverty among women and their families, increasing domestic violence
and women’s lack of participation in political life.
At the Global Fund regional meeting held in Tbilisi, 35 activists
came together for the first time to compare notes across the Caucasus.
At the forum we learned that modern conflicts still cast a pall over
the region, namely, the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the
Nagorno-Karabagh region, and the desire for sovereignty amongst some
ethnic minorities in Georgia. We witnessed firsthand the deplorable
conditions of refugees living in Azerbaijan.
Our meeting in Tbilisi did not only focus on problems, but marked the
successful strategies of women’s groups in the regions. For example,
the Georgian women’s movement has succeeded in getting a law against
domestic violence passed in the wake of the nonviolent Rose Revolution
in 2003. It is achievements such as these that will enable feminists in
the Caucasus to consolidate their diverse efforts into a regional force
for change.
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