The Women’s Program will be traveling to Kazakhstan, Croatia, and Bulgaria in October for a workshop on monitoring new domestic violence laws in Central and Eastern Europe.  Mary Ellingen, Rose Park, Cheryl Thomas, and Rose Thelen will present at a four day workshop in Sofia Bulgaria October 4 – 7 organized by the Women’s Program and our partner, The Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation.  Participants will join the workshop from 13 countries. 

Rose Park and Mary Ellingen will then travel to Croatia to begin work on a country specific report monitoring the implementation of new domestic violence laws there.  Cheryl Thomas will travel to Kazakhstan to provide consultation and technical expertise to Podrugi a women’s human rights organization that is working to implement a new domestic violence law in that country.  The Women’s Program participated in the drafting of that law last year.  These initiatives are supported by the Open Society Institute’s Human Rights and Governance Program in Budapest, the United Nations Agency for Women and the Oak Foundation of Geneva.