Advanced Training Course (ATC) Еvent “Gender Mainstreaming in Counter-terrorism Efforts in Western Balkans”– 6th working day and closing of the event (21.05.2021)

The ATC event “Gender Mainstreaming in Counter-terrorism Efforts in Western Balkans” that was aimed at incorporation gender perspectives in CT and P/CVE efforts in the region of Western Balkans, and in the broader security sector realm, as well as to analyse the drivers to radicalization processes through gender lenses.

At the beginning of the last working day Chief Master Seargent Kathrine Kiourtsidou, Secretary General of the Gender Equality Office of the Greek Federation of Military Personnel, and Chief Master Seargent Georgia Kosmaoglu, Director of the said Office, PFEARFU (Greece) were speaking on topic “The roles of women in Greek Urban Warfare compared to the experiences of women in Jihadi terrorism, as experienced in Syria and Iraq”.

Dr. Ilya Roubanis was presenting a research on women as agents of political violence in particular from Central Asian countries, more specifically from Kazakhstan,  Tajikistan  and  Uzbekistan, based on interviews with 200 female returnees. He explained the possibilities of investigation, charge, prosecution, and rehabilitation of the female terrorists.

The ATC event was rounded-off by an excellent presentation by Mr. Alex Martin, CEO & Co-Founder of Clearspeed. He shared Clearspeed’s experience working with NATO and how NATO is using NATO Innovation Network, leveraging open innovation and agile development to tackle NATO challenges and design solutions.

The closing of the event featured speeches by the co-directors of the event Prof. Dr. Metodi Hadji Janev, C3I-Skopje (North Macedonia) and Prof. Dr. Vedada Barakovic, University of Tuzla (BiH) who addressed the relevance of the topic in the socio-political context in the Western Balkans and the importance of the incorporation of gender component in designing and implementing future CT and P/CVE policies and programs. The advanced training course supported by the NATO SPS Programme brought together more than 50 military and civilian experts employed in the institutional and NGO sector from 7 countries from Western Balkans and the broader SEE Region as trainees and 35 renowned professors, experts and practitioners from 15 NATO member and NATO partner countries as speakers and lecturers.