We want to teach women to sew and weave in order to learn the skills to earn a living one-day to support themselves and their families.The Lotus Flower will be working with Yazidi women in Kurdistan region of Iraq. The atrocities Yazidi women have faced hit the headlines in August 2014, and are still doing so today.
As one of our newest projects, Peace Sisters provides women and girls with training so that they can lead peace processes and take a more active role in rebuilding their fractured communities. Although there are other projects on the ground that foster peacebuilding and social cohesion, we believe Peace Sisters is one of the first to train women to become mediators, peace defenders and active community leaders.
In any conflict, women and girls are known to suffer most, and displacement worsens pre-existing patterns of discrimination. This exposes them to heightened risks of human rights violations, including rape, slavery, trafficking, forced marriage and sexual violence, which all increase as a result of conflict, as well as torture and even murder. In addition, girls living in conflict-afflicted countries have less opportunity to go to school or seek employment.
Since 2016 we have been working with a team of pro-bono international lawyers at Hogan Lovells to pursue civil litigation cases for women ISIS survivors. The move is aimed at finally bringing Islamic State fighters to justice, while delivering compensation to female Yazidi survivors in northern Iraq.
Although we primarily support women and girls, we fundamentally believe that men and boys must be involved in advancing gender equality and bringing change for everyone. In recent months, we have been running positive masculinity workshops for men and boys, which are aimed at raising awareness and shifting traditional perceptions around women’s roles in society, and helping end harmful behaviours against them.
