Women’s human rights

medica mondiale is an advocate for women – worldwide

The English term “advocacy” aptly conveys how medica mondiale pursues the idea of championing women’s human rights: we combine direct medical, psycho-social and legal support with advocacy for women’s issues wherever political decisions are taken.
We work to ensure that politicians and the general public are aware of human rights violations against women and take political action. We raise society’s awareness about the issues facing survivors of sexualised violence in war and crisis zones.

Unstinting endeavour for human and women’s rights

Human rights work calls for stamina, even just in terms of “doing the rounds” and knocking on the doors of political and civil society organisations. Allies are crucial in human rights work, allowing us to bring influence to bear through strategic cooperation, both nationally and internationally. In our role as advocates for women and girls, medica mondiale draws on its legal skills and political experience in carefully targeted campaigns to achieve progress on women’s rights by working hand-in-hand with decision-makers.

We play an active part in responding to human rights violations perpetrated against women in war zones, which include:

• rape during war and traumatisation
• trafficking in women
• domestic violence in war and crisis zones
• social taboos concerning violence against women
• isolation and exclusion of survivors of sexualised violence
• denial of access to education, work and health-care for women
• infection with HIV through rape

We want to ensure politicians and the general public take notice of these crimes against women so that such crimes are properly documented, denounced and prosecuted. However, we cannot achieve this effectively and efficiently on our own, which is why we enter into strategic cooperation agreements nationally and internationally. We network with organisations working on health and development policy, humanitarian aid, peace-making, refugee and human rights issues and are involved in addressing human rights violations against women in international criminal trials.

 

How does medica mondiale demand and secure human rights for women?

We sharpen understanding.

We seek to ensure governments, organisations and the general public have a keener perception of human rights violations affecting women and girls due to sexualised violence in war and crisis zones (war rapes, trafficking, upsurge in domestic violence induced by wartime brutality) and increase insight into the traumatisation this can cause and the associated consequences.

We raise governments’ and organisations’ awareness.

Targeted awareness-raising and information campaigns focus on governmental and national/international non-governmental organisations (GOs, NGOs, INGOs), as well as the general public to ensure that sexualised violence against women is mainstreamed as an issue of concern in all relevant political decision-making and addressed in tangible terms.

We call for changes in behaviour.

Political lobbying work is urgently needed to develop and implement a German code of conduct for members of the German armed forces and humanitarian organisations working internationally, to take preventive action to ensure human rights violations against women and girls do not recur and to punish such violations.

We network women.

We encourage our projects abroad and the main office in Cologne to cooperate closely in lobbying initiatives regarding women’s issues, so as to bring about policy changes for women on the ground.

We call for women to be involved.

We promote networking with INGOs/ NGOs, e.g. at national /international conferences to help ensure that women become more involved in peace, reconstruction and budget negotiations in the spirit of UN Resolution 1325 “For Women, Peace and Security”. ( current call for action)

 

Contact:
medica mondiale e.V.
Selmin Çalışkan
(Politics and women’s rights)
Hülchrather Straße 4
50670 Köln/Cologne (Germany)
Tel.  0049-(0)221-93 18 98-0/-24
Fax  0049-(0)221-93 18 98-1