Collaborating with the WAVE Network: The Impact in North Macedonia & Cyprus
Author: Valeria Jacome
The most recent UPR findings for Cyprus underscore the importance of the state’s commitment to gender equality in both the political and economic spheres. Notable advancements since Cyprus’ previous UPR cycle include: the integration of women into the National Action Plan on women, peace, and security; the Strategy of Equality between Women and Men; the Law on the Prevention and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence and Related Matters; and narrowing of the gender pay gap. These achievements should be recognized as Cyprus continues its efforts to improve women's rights. Throughout the latest UPR of Cyprus, Member States’ recommendations reflected The Advocates, MIGS, and WAVE's concerns made in our UPR submission and urged the state to enhance human trafficking and violence against women protections in the country.
In our joint stakeholder report, we recommended that Cyprus establish specialized trainings and early victim identification tools for law enforcement officials, judges, and other relevant actors to more adequately address victims' needs and existing trafficking and violence against women’s issues. The governments of Spain, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Lithuania, and the Philippines reflected our concerns and made recommendations based on improving mechanisms to identify victims of human trafficking. Another recommendation that we presented was for Cyprus to provide sufficient funding to enact the National Strategy for Preventing and Combatting of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. In particular, Switzerland directly called for the allocation of sufficient resources to implement the National Strategy Plan listed above, while the United Arab Emirates, Botswana, Chile, Estonia, Iceland, and Paraguay urged Cyprus to continue its efforts to implement the National Strategy Plan without directly asking for resource allocation. In our report, we also recommended that Cyprus collect and publish a comprehensive data on all forms of gender-based violence against women. In the UPR report, Panama urged Cyprus to collect disaggregated data on all forms of sexual and gender-based violence, as well as related court cases.
In response to these specific recommendations posed by these Member States, Cyprus accepted the calls for more training of actors in direct association with victims and the creation of databases monitoring and investigating all forms of violence or human trafficking. Cyprus also accepted the recommendation for continued financial and goodwill implementation of the National Strategy and National Action Plan on Preventing and Combatting Violence Against Women. We commend Cyprus for accepting these recommendations and urge the government to take the steps to fully incorporate these recommendations to further strengthen the country’s protection mechanisms for victims of violence and human trafficking.
The most recent UPR findings reveal North Macedonia’s commitment to protecting victims of gender-based violence and domestic violence in the legislative sector. Since the last UPR Cycle, North Macedonia has developed new protection laws and strategies, including: the creation of a manual urging femicide to be treated as a new type of criminal offense; national strategy plans for the prevention and protection of gender-based violence for women and children; and the adoption of the Law on Payment of Monetary Compensation to Victims of Violent Crimes in 2023, which integrates the standards of the Istanbul Convention to provide better protections for victims of gender-based violence. Although these are notable achievements, North Macedonia must strengthen its efforts to reduce and mitigate gender-based violence and domestic violence. Throughout the latest UPR of North Macedonia, Member States’ recommendations reflected The Advocates, the National Network to End Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, and WAVE's concerns made in our UPR submission and urged the State to enhance its implementation of the Istanbul Convention and improve the access to gender-based violence and domestic violence services throughout the country.
In our joint stakeholder report, we recommended that North Macedonia ensure that all professionals dealing with victims or perpetrators of gender-based violence and domestic violence receive mandatory initial victim-centered, trauma-informed training. The governments of Ireland, Maldives, Panama, the Philippines, The Gambia, and Portugal encouraged North Macedonia to continue administering specialized trainings focused on educating law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges on the recently amended Criminal Code and on human rights-based approaches that will help improve victim support. Another recommendation we made was for North Macedonia to allocate funds for specialized services that help and support victims of gender-based violence and domestic violence to become more sustainable and accessible. Specific recommendations were made by the Republic of Moldova, Slovenia, Ireland, and France, urging North Macedonia to take additional steps to improve access to specialized services and shelters for victims of gender-based violence in rural areas. In our report, we also recommended that the government of North Macedonia allocate funds within its budget to implement the National Action Plan for the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. In the UPR report, Belgium reflected our concerns and made a recommendation to allocate sufficient funding for the activities related to prevention and protection against gender-based violence listed in the national action plan concerning the implementation of the Istanbul Convention.
It is worth noting that North Macedonia accepted and implemented Belgium’s recommendation to allocate funding for the implementation of the Istanbul Convention in the activities focused on the prevention and protection against gender-based violence. In response to the other recommendations, North Macedonia accepted the calls for victim-centered, trauma-informed trainings for actors directly in contact with victims of gender-based violence and domestic abuse. North Macedonia also accepted the recommendations to take further steps to make victim support services more sustainable. As these recommendations urge the government to “take additional steps,” they present an opportunity to incorporate more specific recommendations from our report. These recommendations include increased efforts to develop standardized procedures that improve the functioning of service providers; to organize finances to strengthen service providers’ capacities and ultimately spread access to these services in rural areas; and for the State to recognize the value of women’s rights organizations when addressing victim’s needs. We commend North Macedonia for accepting these recommendations and encourage the government to take the steps to fully incorporate these recommendations to further strengthen the country’s protection and prevention strategies for victims of gender-based violence and domestic violence.