On Wednesday, 6 December from 13-15 h, two organizations – …IZ KRUGA – VOJVODINA and SOS WOMEN’S CENTER – organized a street action in the Novi Sad University campus within the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence global campaign. The aim of the action was to increase the capacity of students to recognize cases of partnership violence and their information about organizations in Novi Sad providing support to women experiencing violence.
The women activists from …IZ KRUGA – VOJVODINA and SOS WOMEN’S CENTER distributed info materials to students, asking them also a couple of questions concerning gender-based violence.
The info materials contained basic information on services provided to women experiencing gender-based violence by these two organizations, a notebook with illustrations of situations representing warning signs re. partnership violence, as well as pens and key pendants with the helpline number.
The students’ response to the action was very good. A total of 101 students responded to the questionnaire and got the info-package. Female students are more aware than male ones that the most frequent perpetrators of violence in a partnership are men (78.48% cf. 47.37% respectively). However, a high proportion of both female and male students (62.03% and 63.16% respectively) believe the prejudice that alcohol and drugs abuse are the most common reasons of partnership violence to be true. A little less than half of the interviewees (43%) have heard about the SOS Women’s Center, while only 13% of them have heard about …IZ KRUGA – VOJVODINA organization. The poll results indicate that it is necessary to work on awareness raising among the student population on gender-based violence and inform them about relevant service providers.
