Scoring Workshop on the 2024 Regional Index on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) – Kurdistan Region of Iraq

The workshop convened key representatives from KRG ministries, the judiciary, and civil society organisations, with the aim of scoring the indicators specific to the Kurdistan Region as part of the broader regional index. This process will feed into a comprehensive scoring dialogue at the Arab regional level.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Fenk Shafeeq, Director General of DCVAW, underscored the significance of the scoring process as a foundation for evidence-based policymaking and strategic advocacy efforts toward the eradication of all forms of violence against women and girls.

The 2024 Regional Index on VAWG comprises a set of indicators across seven key categories designed to support and monitor the implementation of national policies and measures to combat violence against women and girls. The index encompasses nine countries: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq (including the Kurdistan Region), Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia.

This phase of the scoring process in Erbil follows a series of expert meetings and national roundtables previously held in both Baghdad and Erbil, where representatives from government, legal institutions, and civil society successfully reviewed Iraq’s and KR-I’s reports and discussed the methodology for scoring the index’s indicators.

The workshop in Erbil marked a crucial step toward capturing the local context of the Kurdistan Region within the regional framework and ensuring that both achievements and challenges in addressing VAWG are accurately reflected.