Carlotta Rigotti participates in ViolenceStop project
Recently, Carlotta Rigotti participated in the ViolenceStop project, a collaboration between Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) and the Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas (Cuba).
On 25 March and 4 April 2024, Carlotta Rigotti, a postdoctoral researcher specialising in law, gender, and technology at the eLaw Center participated in the joint ViolenceStop project conducted by Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Belgium) and Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas (UCLV, Cuba) for fieldwork in Cuba.
Funded by the VLIR-UOS scheme, the project aims to establish collaboration between teams from the VUB and UCLV in order to develop modern, effective care and protection mechanisms for women and children experiencing physical, psychological, sexual and financial violence in Cuba. This initiative involves the exchange of academic and practitioner experiences and best practices among researchers with various specialisations, relevant Belgian institutions and Cuban public and non-governmental stakeholders. Despite having a legal foundation, the treatment of gendered violence and violence against children in Cuba suffers from methodological and normative deficiencies and lacks an integrated approach. Therefore, this project seeks to identify practices, methodologies, and strategies to enhance protection mechanisms and care protocols for women and children, with the objective of formulating recommendations tailored to the Cuban context.
Carlotta was invited to join the third round of fieldwork and contribute her expertise on law, gender and technology to the project. To this end, she delivered a guest lecture on 29 March 2024 about the criminalisation of image-based sexual abuse across Europe at UCLV, in which she highlighted current developments and challenges and drew lessons to contextualise the subsequent Q&A session within the Cuban context. On 4 April 2024, at a courthouse in Cuba, Carlotta then provided a comprehensive and critical overview of the European Commission's proposal for a directive on violence against women and domestic violence, where legal professionals and journalists working on the topic participated in the explanation and subsequent discussion.
In addition to these lectures, Carlotta contributed to various other project activities. These activities included a meeting with the representative of the Ministry of Culture in Trinidad to discuss safe environments for women, a workshop on conceptualisations and solutions to violence against women in a suburban municipality of Santa Clara, a meeting with the Defensoria on enhancing victim support and assistance at the Ministry of Justice in Havana and a symposium on protocols and challenges in addressing violence against women at the Institute of Philosophy in Havana.