Event Date: April 2, 2026, Online
Self-Defense in Gender-Based Violence Cases: Shifting Towards Gender-Sensitive Prosecution
Date: 2 April 2026 (Thursday), 14-16 (Helsinki)
Location: Online via Zoom
Registration: https://forms.gle/gxvMSKJ5og9FNKJe6
The University of Helsinki and the research project “Till Death Do Us Part: Four Epochs of Violence in Every Family in Russia – What Makes it Russian? (FEVER)” invite researchers, legal practitioners, NGOs, and students to a workshop on domestic violence and self-defense.
The workshop will explore:
How the gender-neutral framing of national laws and policies often fails to account for the gender dimensions of such crimes; The role of international human rights law and jurisprudence in advancing or shifting standards of prosecution and adjudication toward a more gender-sensitive approach; Key steps that can be taken domestically to address the needs of women prosecuted for self-defence in domestic violence cases, acknowledging their dual status as both victims and accused; The potential contributions of national and international NGOs, lawyers, and researchers.
Speakers:
Bronwyn Pithey is an admitted Advocate in the High Court of South Africa, working for the Women’s Legal Centre (WLC) in Cape Town, South Africa. WLC is an African feminist public interest law centre, specialising in constitutional strategic litigation, advancing the rights of women to achieve substantive equality. Bronwyn leads the Women’s Right to be Free from Violence Programme and is currently involved in several constitutional litigation cases challenging the constitutionality of legislation, the implementation of judgments and laws, and access to justice for marginalised and vulnerable women. Prior to the WLC she was an advocate/prosecutor and regional head in the Sexual Offences and Community Affairs Unit of the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa (NPA) from 2000 to 2015. She has been intricately involved in the development and drafting of numerous pieces of legislation and policies regarding violence against women over the last 25 years. She is the co-editor of the Juta Sexual Offences Commentary on the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007. She holds LLB and LLM degrees from the University of Cape Town.
Dariana Gryaznova is a lawyer who has worked in the human rights sector since 2013, with a focus on women’s rights and non-discrimination. Her work spans different jurisdictions and includes human rights litigation before national courts and before the European Court of Human Rights and UN treaty bodies; producing thematic and country reports; and advocacy at the national level and before regional and international human rights mechanisms to address violence against women and girls, including sexual violence. She currently works at an international women’s rights NGO. Dariana has a personal blog (in Russian) where she writes about violence against women in Russia and globally. She holds an LLB in Law from Saint Petersburg State University and an LLM (Distinction) in Human Rights Law from Queen Mary University of London.
The event will be held online and will last approximately 2 hours.