On February 27, 2019, CGDS Director, Dr. Choman Hardi and CGDS EU Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor Mr. Rasti Ranj facilitated “Gender Justice Training,” for female judges, members of the Public Defender's Office, as well as civil society organizations, lawyers, and parties to the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act in the Kurdistan Region. This was part of a two-day Regional Advisory Meeting which was coordinated and led by the Women's Legal Aid (WOLA) Organization in collaboration with the British Consulate.
The main purpose of the consultative meeting was to establish a better relationship among judges, members of the public prosecutor's office, and the organizations and the parties concerned with enforcing the rules, as well as to strengthen the role of female judges within society, and to determine the issues within the courts. The workshop had numerous presentations, speeches, discussions, and data findings.
The CGDS Director and EU M&E Advisor highlighted the mechanisms of silencing the cases of women, and discussed the concepts of race and gender, of power, of gender equality and socially constructed rules, of the relationship between gender and law, and the ambiguity of certain legal terms and texts. The training was followed by a comprehensive discussion among the participants and a number of on-site activities to explain the reality of the privileges that men acquire and women lack.