Join 16 Days of activism against Violence!

Kyrgyzstan, like many other places, faces the alarming issue of gender-based violence. According to prosecutor`s office of Kyrgyzstan, within the last year, more than 8 thousand women suffered from domestic violence. Unfortunately, this is just an official data and the real figures would likely be much higher.

Meerim Osmonalieva is the head of a local charity organization supporting victims of human trafficking and violence. She is the first Kyrgyzstani who took part in JICA’s “Eradicating Sexual and Gender-Based Violence” training held in Japan. Meerim was deeply impressed by this training, which brought together participants from different countries, serving as a great platform for knowledge and experience sharing. Ultimately, all participants concluded that gender based moral concept play a crucial role in combatting the violence, emphasizing the need to disseminate knowledge about violence in families and educational institutions.

Thanks to this training, Meerim discovered that Japan pays attention to mental relations. One example is the courses on healthy relationships that are included in the school program, teaching people from childhood to distinguish healthy, non-toxic relations, harassment, and abuse. Furthermore, children learn about their image rights at school and they understand that it is not allowed to utilize somebody’s image without permission as regulated by law. Additionally, in Japan, centers supporting the victims of sexual violence are successfully functioned and supported by the business sector and by the Government.

During the training in Japan, participants had daily opportunities to visit organizations fighting with domestic violence and get a firsthand experience and knowledge.

Training in Japan was very useful for Meerim and inspired her to plans a series of trainings in schools in Kyrgyzstan to raise awareness about violence and how to combat against it.

From November 25th, t