INTERNATIONAL PROJECT: STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST OLDER WOMEN: I AM STRONG - I AM SECURE

Institute cooperated in a one year international project within Daphne II - Stop violence against older women: I am stong-I am secure - that has started in march 2006 and finished in February 2007. Project leader and coordinator was Gefas Steiermark from Austria, our Institute and Athena from Czech republic were their partners. The main goal of this project was to explore the violence against older women and to empower them to defend themselves on the public places.

This one year project comprised empowerment training as violence prevention for older women (55+). Training was developed in collaboration with a trainer, who has been working on specific no sports techniques for this beneficiary group for a long time, considering elder women's physical needs and abilities as well as their psychological need not to be seen as victim. Women who participated at these trainings were recruited by organisations included in this project, but they were private persons, not stakeholders of organizations and institutions. At the end of the project, these women become multipliers, who can empower their friends through training and operate in large networks. A multiplier-handbook on training was produced and made available to other networks and organisations.

Within this project, the Institute carried out a study on the violence against older women. The research focused on the relation between printed media and violence against the elderly, as well as on the content of the articles, dealing with violent acts. This research was aimed to answer the following questions: how often do articles about violence against the elderly appear in newspapers, in which columns, how do journalists present the topic (style of presentation), what is the nature of the violent act, who was the perpetrator, what was the perpetrator's motive for the violent act, where and when did the violent act happen, what was the victim’s reaction and what were the consequences for the victim and for the perpetrator. The analysis of the research showed, that in most cases young male perpetrators financially damaged older female victims, which often suffered also physical injuries.

The results of the study were published in a Slovenian gerontological journal Good quality of old age Vol. 9, No. 3, 2006: Violence against the elderly: The research of printed media (Katja Tomažič, Alenka Zorč)