Safe spaces for women in challenging environments

Safe spaces for women in challenging environments
The Lancet Global Health, volume 7, issue 8, August 2019
Şevkat BaharÖzvarış^a HedvigHricak^b

For women in high-income countries, it is a promising sign that the European Congress of Radiology—one of the world’s largest meetings of medical professionals— this year featured a new and well attended programme addressing the need for greater gender equality in the workplace. The programme, entitled Women in Focus— Be Inspired, aimed mainly to examine the reasons for gender imbalances in academic and leadership
positions and to encourage women to identify and pursue their priorities, whether career-based or personal objectives. However, one of the programme’s sessions, Safe Spaces for Women in Challenging Environments, was a sobering reminder that, for millions of women worldwide, the struggle for basic human rights eclipses the goal of gender equality, and that these women must not be forgotten. The session described a pioneering project in Ankara, Turkey, that provides health-counselling centres for refugee women and girls. Through a simple, community-oriented framework, this project brings hope to shattered lives by rebuilding confidence and empowering women to support each other across the boundaries of race, culture, and tradition. Read more here.

^a Institute of Public Health and Women’s Research and Implementation Centre, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey

^b Department of Radiology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA