Bodossaki Foundation collaborates with Goldman Sachs Gives to support socially vulnerable groups that have been severely affected by the particular circumstances created by the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme that was created supports the fight against gender-based violence and child abuse in Greece, strengthening the work of the ELIZA Society, the DIOTIMA Centre and the General Secretariat for Gender Equality.
In detail:
- ELIZA Society
“National Programme for training healthcare professionals in the identification and management of cases involving the sexual abuse of children”
With a view to defending the rights and the safety of vulnerable children as well as awakening society to the phenomenon of sexual abuse and informing the public about related prevention and early intervention methods, ELIZA implemented the “National Programme for training healthcare professionals in the identification and management of cases involving the sexual abuse of children”.
The 12-month long programme, which was completed in December 2021, was implemented in two parts:
1.Training programme for health professionals taking care of children: Training of 1,700 doctors, nurses, medical students and interns throughout the country, through 6 online training seminars and 6 clinical tutorials. University paediatric clinics from 5 cities in Greece –Alexandroupolis, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Patras and Larissa– participated in the coordination of the training seminars.
The trainings were implemented under the auspices of the Ministry of Health and were carried out with the Child Safety Care Unit of the 2nd Paediatric Clinic of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) acting as Scientific Officer, at the “P. & A. Kyriakou” Children’s Hospital, the NKUA Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Laboratory, and the Department of Child and Adolescent Gynaecology of the NKUA 1st Obstetrics and Gynaecology Clinic at “Alexandra” Hospital. Dartmouth College and Yale University from the US also contributed to the programme’s formulation.
2.Citizens’ awareness campaign: As part of the programme, a general public awareness campaign was also carried out to raise the citizen’s awareness of the need for specialist professionals to identify sexual abuse, with a spot that was extensively broadcast on TV channels and social networks, promoting the programme’s message to more than 1,500,000 citizens.
2.DIOTIMA Centre
“Legal and psychosocial support to female survivors of gender-based violence”
With the aim of providing, free of charge, assistance to female survivors of gender-based violence, which increased during the pandemic grew period, the DIOTIMA Centre for Gender Rights and Equality implemented the programme “Legal and psychosocial support to female survivors of gender-based violence”.
The programme, which was implemented from January to October 2021, supported more than 150 women with legal assistance (counselling and representation before the courts) and/or psychosocial support.
The incidents involved almost all forms of gender-based violence, mostly often domestic violence, and included psychological/verbal violence, sexual harassment, stalking, physical abuse, rape, trafficking.
Meeting with a very good response from the judicial authorities, all the legal actions taken under the programme proved effective in helping the women who placed their trust it to find the strength to claim justice for themselves.
3. General Secretariat for Demography and Family Policy and Gender Equality
“Support services and development of the study on the design of an integrated management system for #MeToo cases”
With a view to upgrading the system currently used by the competent Stats body for handling complaints of sexual harassment, abuse and authoritative violence, the programme finances the development of a design study for an integrated management system for the General Secretariat for Demography and Family Policy and Gender Equality of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
Under the programme, scheduled to be completed in 2022, the following needs have been prioritised:
- Study and description of the existing operating framework of the General Secretariat for Demography and Family Policy and Gender Equality
- Identification of new requirements and needs, through the study of national and European good practices and the search for additional relevant bodies to be integrated into the single complaint reception, recording and investigation process
- Designing a new single procedure for receiving and recording a complaint, in order to avoid cases where the same incident is reported to multiple bodies
- Interconnecting the relevant bodies, in order to facilitate the allocation of cases to the most competent one, and defining a workflow control, information and monitoring framework.
