On February 11, the CGDS team was invited to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science at Koya University. The Event started with an opening speech by the Koya University President, Dr. Wali M. Hamad, who also announced the opening of their Gender Studies Unit. CGDS director, Dr. Choman Hardi, alongside Susan Arif, Bahar Ali, and others were invited to speak about women’s participation in politics, peace-building, and the professional labour force. Dr. Choman’s presentation focused on the mechanisms used to dominate women in the workplace, highlighting the importance of challenging sexist language, jokes, and gossip that target women as well as documenting one’s own ideas and establishing a support network to challenge these mechanisms.
This event was a step for CGDS and the Gender Center in Koya University to collaborate on the issue of gender inequality and for Koya university to be a part of the network for sharing resources between countries in the MENA Region.