A consultant at the SOS phone line of IZ KRUGA VOJVODINA, Miladinka Mijatovic, participated in the workshop about cyber sexual violence. SOS Women’s Center for supporting women victims of violence organized it on January 29, 2022.
The workshop was held within the project NOT A JOKE – Sexual harassment is a serious thing realized by SOS Women’s Center and MultiRadio within the program Youth and Media for democratic development, implemented by the Belgrade Open School with the support of the Swedish Agency for International Development.
The workshop aimed to inform young people about recognition and forms of cyber sexual violence, its consequences, timely reaction and available support services they can address for help.
Some of the most common forms of cyber violence are sending and uploading explicit photographs and videos online without the consent of the person depicted on them, posting comments with a sexual connotation, as well as sending similar messages. Posting such content can have permanent consequences on young people’s mental health and social functioning.
Workshop participants concluded that the topic of sexual violence is insufficiently recognized in media and among the general population, pointing out the need to raise awareness about its presence and ways of providing support to people in situations of violence.
Andrea Kosanin, Jovana Kostevski and Vanja Stepanovic, associates on the SOS Women’s Center project, held the workshop. It is the first in line that SOS Women’s Center will organize in the forthcoming period to give young people a chance to talk and share experiences about violence.
