UN Women invited women and girl seasonal agricultural workers to share their experiences in child, early, and forced marriage, which remains a common practise in their communities.

On 12 November 2019, the comic book Kalys was presented in the Kyrgyz State Art Museum during the Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan Festival with a reading, discussion and interactive creative session, bringing to light ways of tackling the problem of kidnapping for forced marriage.

Billions of people across the world stand on the right side of history every day. They speak up, take a stand, mobilize, and take big and small actions to advance women’s rights. This is Generation Equality. Fatmira Dajlani has been working as an activist for 14 years in Albania and is leading “Roma Gateway for Integration” organization in Fushe Kruje.

Altyngul Zhanlynbekovna Kozhogeldieva, 32, heads the National Federation of Female Communities of Kyrgyzstan (NFFCK). An activist fighting against child marriage since she was 14, she believes that barriers remain in achieving equality between boys and girls. In this interview, Ms. Altyngul Kozhogeldieva discusses what’s changed in gender equality and under-age marriages in Kyrgyzstan since Beijing 1995, warns of the dangers of poor implementation and radicalization, and calls on the next generation to step up.

UN Women workshops in Turkey introduce participants to upcoming perception research on men’s attitudes and beliefs towards early and forced marriages

Empowered by UN Women, Syrian refugees are changing traditional gender norms. UN Women's SADA Empowerment and Solidarity Centre in Gaziantep, a southeastern Turkish province near the border with Syria, has been providing refugees and local women with livelihood, psycho-social, referral support and vocational training.

Qerim Emini, a 25-year-old man from the Ashkali community in Lipljan, Kosovo had heard many stories of young girls getting married in his city.

Participants at an event co-organized by UN Women say gender-based violence has significant, far-reaching impacts on families and communities and impedes achieving 2030 sustainable development goals (SDGs), which include targets to end violence against women and girls.

A Roma family challenges cultural norms by refusing a reparatory marriage. In their community, school drop-out rate is a stagerring record 58 per cent, mainly driven by child/early marriages, unplanned pregnancies and childcare responsibilities.

A programme from the National Federation of Female Communities of Kyrgyzstan, supported by a grant from the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, has introduced the first-ever curriculum on gender-based violence in Kyrgyz language in schools in rural Kyrgyzstan.

Religious leaders in the Pankisi Gorge region in eastern Georgia will no longer endorse marriages under the age of 18 in line with the legal regulations in the country. The decision was made by imams together with the Council of Elders in the region.