UK Foreign Office and OCIA Held a Workshop on GBV and Women’s role in Politics

Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq (GOV.KRD) - The British Consulate General and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) held the second session for KRG’s Office of the Coordinator for International Advocacy (OCIA) on the implementation of Regional Plan for Human Rights on Thursday. It was on gender; mainly focusing on sexual and gender-based violence, conflict and gender, and political participation of women. 

The workshop was held virtually with the FCDO's team, which was comprised of Rosy Cave, the Chair MENA Department in Equality Network, Nia Jones, from the Gender and Conflict Policy Team, Airlie Taylor, the Deputy Regional Director - MENA Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), Kate Latimir Social Development Advisor (GBV), and Olivia Head the Policy and Programme Officer in Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) Team.

The workshop was also attended by the British Consul General in Erbil, David Hunt.

The FCDO team started with praising KRG for embarking on the implementation of the Regional Plan. Rosy Cave stressed that FCDO places focus on education, empowerment, and ending violence against women as three stepping stones towards achieving gender equality. She also stated that Kurdistan's Regional Plan addresses these three elements; a positive signal that illustrates KRG's commitment to sweep away the social and political restrictions that hinder the empowerment of women and enables the occurrence of GBV.

The KRG’s Coordinator for International Advocacy, Dr.Dindar Zebari provided an overview of the Regional Plan and stressed that KRG propelled legislative and executive improvements in the area of gender equality and prevention of GBV to the top of its public policies. The bold lines in the Regional Plan that address gender were illustrated.

Later, the OCIA explained that KRG is committed to legally eliminate all form of gender discrimination, socially preventing GBV through raising awareness and accountability, and politically to integrate women into the decision-making process.