Join us to mark the anniversary of Women's March 2017, when millions around the world gathered to show solidarity with the global cause for women's rights.

We are coming together again under the slogan END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, once again determined and united to fight for what is right.

Last year, 35 women were murdered in Bulgaria by their partner or husband. 1 in 3 women has experienced physical and/or or sexual violence. Over the course of 2018, the debate on the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention, served to unite many of us under the common cause of fighting gender based violence and oppression. However, it also signaled the serious rise of the far right nationalists and conservatives in Bulgaria and across the world. United Patriots, the junior partner of the ruling coalition, and the Bulgarian Socialist Party came out against the Convention after 30 civil and religious organizations signed an open letter opposing the ratification, claiming the Convention would introduce a “third sex” and same-sex marriage. The main argument the far right put forward was that the term ‘gender’ represents a third sex option and signifies someone who chose their gender identity to be against the norm, viz. against God and the traditional family. Women and LGBTI+ people became a target of the so called “gender ideology” narrative, which simultaneously rejected the concept of “gender” and used the term as an insult, designating an LGBTI+ person. By insisting the Istanbul Convention undermines the Bulgarian national sovereignty, the far right used 'gender ideology' to flag their opposition to LGBTI+ people, feminism, trans rights, and concepts such as gender and gender identity.

Building on the alliances we have forged throughout 2018, we vow to step up our efforts to combat gender based violence, homophobia and transfobia, and to stand more firmly in opposition to the far right.

The mission of Sofia University's Student Society for Equality is to have a safe and inclusive university for all. We believe that could be achieved only through a strive for equality and building a community based on mutual respect and shared understandings of justice and freedom. Our values are: intersectionality, empowerment, freedom, solidarity, equal opportunities.