On the 12th of October, local partners of the FEM-UnitED project, Women’s Rights Foundation and the Department of Gender and Sexualities, within the Faculty for Social Wellbeing at the University of Malta, met with stakeholders to discuss recommendations for the prevention of femicide. The meeting included attendees from law, social services, and public health to gain insight on how the different fields can contribute to the prevention of violence against women.
The FEM-UnitED research project aims to create a community-based prevention strategy that incorporates a holistic approach across various fields. This means that all institutions and services that relate to the prevention of violence against women are involved.
During the meeting, they discussed the question of how a prevention campaign can be created in an inclusive, multi-faceted fashion, keeping in mind intersectionality. Strategies include prevention methods such as capacity building (training) and the creation of guidelines addressing violence against women, as well as online campaigning, targeting gender stereotypes and existing inequalities. The stakeholders considered how a prevention strategy specific to Malta can be created, and the particular needs of the country in order to do so. This involved a general discussion on gender inequality in Malta, and the various areas of life it affects.
Through such discussions, the research project strives to increase the capacity of social workers, victim support services, police, prosecutors, NGOs, and the general public in the prevention of violence, and ultimately, femicide.
The international partners of the project include the Cyprus University of Technology, the Institute for Empirical Sociological Research at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Bavaria, Germany), the University of Zaragoza (Spain), and the University of Porto (Portugal). The team is also made up of advocacy NGOs and women’s specialist services, including UMAR – União de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta (Portugal) and MIGS - The Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies.