Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies

In 2013, through public tender, CIEG was selected to undertake the Evaluation of applications to the 10th edition of the Equality is Quality Award (“Avaliação das candidaturas à 10.ª edição do Prémio Igualdade é Qualidade”) (project budget: 19.639€), for the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG-Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género). The project involved a systematic technical assessment of the 9 applications submitted to this award, which aims to reward enterprises, institutions (private and public) and employers that distinguish themselves for the development of gender equality policies at work, in employment and vocational training, and adopt principles and measures to balance work, family, and personal life.

The CIEG’s team included Anália Torres (coord.), Helena Sant'Ana and Dália Costa.

In 2013, CIEG was chosen through public tender to carry out the Evaluation Study of the "Fourth National Plan for Equality, Gender, Citizenship and non-Discrimination", the "Second Program of Action for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation", and the "National Action Plan for the Implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325" (Estudo de Avaliação do "IV Plano Nacional para Igualdade, Género Cidadania e não Discriminação", do "II Programa de Ação para a Eliminação da Mutilação Genital Feminina", e do "Plano Nacional de Ação para Implementação da Resolução n.º 1325") (project budget: 61.525€),  also promoted by CIG (Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género). This study aimed to assess the implementation of these national plans and included the elaboration of recommendations for better public policies in the area of gender equality and non-discrimination.

The CIEG’s team involved in this project included AnáliaTorres (coord.), Paula Campos Pinto, Bernardo Coelho, Helena Sant'Ana and Dália Costa.

In 2013, the research project Women, Disability and Human Rights in the Middle East (2012-2013) (project budget: 19.600€), was undertaken in collaboration with CAPP/ISCSP and York University (Toronto, Canada). This research involved training 12 women with disabilities from five countries - Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories – to carry on a study on their rights through the collection and analysis of key legislation and policies on three areas (violence against women, access to justice and political participation), as well as the elaboration of a report based on these data and on a desk-based research. 

From this research a report was issued, drawing from information collected through the DRPI Law and Policy Monitoring Template. This assessment tool had been developed to collect, evaluate, report and track information about protections of the rights of persons with disabilities found in national laws, policies and programs, using the principles and rights established in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and other international human rights instruments as benchmarks.

In the Women, Disability and Human Rights in the Middle East (2012-2013), the DRPI Template was adapted in order to give it a more clear gender focus. Therefore, the tool guided monitors in their work to identify the extent to which national legislative and policy frameworks protected and promoted the human rights of women with disabilities. Through a series of questions and research guidelines, the Template measured both the laws and the programs on the books as well as the degree to which women with disabilities enjoy their rights in practice.

Funded by the international organization Stars of Hopeand developed in collaboration with Disability Rights Promotion International (DRPI), the team included: Paula Campos Pinto (coord.) and Diana Teixeira (research assistant).

In 2014, took place the National Survey on Additives Behaviors in Prisons (Inquérito Nacional sobre Comportamentos Aditivos em Meio Prisional) following public tender (project budget: 119.960€). The project consisted of a large survey applied to a representative sample of inmates from all Portuguese prisons and aimed to assess inmates' practices and behaviours concerning health issues focusing especially on drug addiction, alcohol and gambling. The project took a gender analysis approach and was funded by the Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies Intervention Service (SICAD - Serviço de Intervenção nos Comportamentos Aditivos e nas Dependências) of the Portuguese Ministry of Health.

The research team included Anália Torres as its coordinator.

From 2013-2015, the research Dating Violence in Angola (Violência de Género em Angola) was carried out in partnership with the NGO “People in Need”, involving two assessment studies in the municipalities of Kuito and Andulo, Angola. The first study assessed the training needs of local community groups, gathered data on gender violence and about the methodologies set in place to deal with it and evaluated gender stereotypes among the local population. The second aimed to evaluate the outcomes and impact of the project in the community and analyse, in a comparative perspective, data gathered between the first and the second study.

This study was coordinated by Sofia Neves.

CEINAV - Cultural Encounters in Intervention Against Violence (2013-2016) (project budget: 172.150€) took a dual approach to cultural encounters as they played out in ethics, justice and citizenship, through a focus on the protection of fundamental rights of women and children. The project was the outcome of a partnership between Germany, England, Portugal and Slovenia, and is coordinated by Professor Emeritus Carol Hagenann-White, from the University of Osnabrueck, Germany.

It was funded by HERA, and coordinated by Maria José Magalhães in Portugal.

From 2013-2016 the research Dating Violence (Violência no namoro) was developed in collaboration with the Centre for Research and Training in Gender and Family of Cape Verde (CIGEF - Centro de Investigação e Formação em Género e Família) and the University Centre Maurício de Nassau in Brazil (with the possibility of extending the Project to other areas of gender violence such as sexual violence, violence in intimate relationships and violence among same-sex couples).

This research was coordinated by Sofia Neves.

From 2013-2014 the research Group intervention with women victims of intimate violence (“Intervenção em grupo com mulheres vítimas de violência íntima”) (project budget: 11.500€), was developed, funded by the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG). It aimed to implement, in a decentralized manner, four groups of therapeutic intervention with 50 women victims of intimate violence. The goal of the project was to provide continuous technical supervision, follow-up and monitoring to group facilitators in order to build their capacity to use this intervention methodology, and to set up two training sessions for professionals who want to implement this methodology in their organizations.

The project was coordinated by Sofia Neves.

From 2012-2014, the project Depicting Sexualized power relations in magazine advertisements across the Atlantic - comparative analysis between Portugal and Brazil (Representações de violência de género em anúncios publicitários em Portugal e no Brasil) was carried out in collaboration with a research centre of the Federal University of Pampa in Brazil. It aimed to understand how commercials represent gender relations as expressed by power/submission or violence against women. The starting point was the analysis of the images presented by a corpus of 12 issued magazines in Portugal on the first semester of 2012 and in Brazil, in the first semester of 2013.

The project was coordinated by Dália Costa and Maria João Cunha.

From 2013-2015, the study Comparative analysis of media representations of gender violence in the press (Análise comparativa das representações mediáticas da violência de género na imprensa) aimed to understand, from a qualitative and quantitative perspective, how Portugal’s largest circulation newspapers, in their online versions, had been representing gender violence, the prominence given to gender violence issues and how the different actors of the stories of violence were being represented.

The study was undertaken by Dália Costa and Maria João Cunha.