Chirsova, 5 July 2018–Psychologists, social workers, legal advisors will begin to provide free services to survivors of gender-based violence who live in Gagauzia region of Moldova, advising women on a broad number of issues, including psychological recovery, legal matters and how to start a business.

The new programme will also come up with a set of measures to prevent violence from happening in the first place. “Working in and with such a diverse region will allow us to learn what works and is indeed efficient so we can successfully replicate the program in other parts of Moldova. And we are ultimately looking at prevention so that such violence never happens again,” said Valeria Ieseanu, Head of Programme UNDP Moldova.

In Moldova, according to the National Bureau of Statistics’ 2011 survey on violence against women, 7 out of 10 rural women, and 6 out of 10 fertile women (aged 25-44) have experienced at least one form of violence from their partner in their lifetime.

More than half of all women in Moldova have experienced psychological abuse. Two out of 5 women in the country have been physically abused and one in five adult women between the ages of 35 and 59 have experienced sexual harassment.

The pilot program will launch in Chirsova, a small village in Gagauzia, which has approximately 6,298 inhabitants. The number of targeted women, including those from neighboring localities, could reach 20,000.

The programme is one of seven pilots to kick off around the world: Bhutan, Lebanon, Indonesia, Iraq, Moldova, Peru and Uganda.

“Our community is crying out for support services for survivors of GBV,” said the Mayor of Chirsova, Serghei Sapunji. “Police and other social services are put under pressure as there is not enough knowledge or the infrastructure to support a GBV survivor or work with the aggressor to prevent this from happening again”.

For media enquiries, please contact: Laura Bohantova, Communications Analyst +373 685 11 883