Protecting the Civic Space of Women and Girls

ongoing

The primary goal of the MOTERIS project is to strengthen the resilience and enhance the monitoring and advocacy capacities of at least 28 civil society actors in the women’s rights sector in 14 EU Member States (MS) against de facto and/or de jure hostile environments, including in online spaces. The project focuses specifically on supporting women’s rights organisations (WROs) and women human rights defenders (WHRDs), especially highlighting the struggles they face in Central-Eastern-European-Baltic States (CEEBS). To achieve this, the initiative will conduct research on the state of WHRDs and WROs across these 14 EU MS, and building on existing tools of FRA, CIVICUS, CEDAW amd BPfA, will develop a monitoring framework to document and follow up on shrinking civic spaces, creating a comprehensive and transferable methodology with particular attention to vulnerable groups whose fundamental rights are threatened by backlash. Furthermore, the project will deliver tailored training for the relevant CSO actors and mobilise collaboration across WRO and WHRD networks to engage in strategic exchange, co-designing and conducting joint advocacy efforts, including at the EU level. The project brings together 4 national platforms of WROs from across various regions within the EU, and a European network organisation, ensuring that shared patterns as well as particularities and intersectional vulnerabilities are addressed, and that existing local and transnational networks and established avenues of communication and advocacy are involved, activated and improved upon.