COMMENT: Women, Cyprus and civil society

By Fiona Mullen

 

Society should be judged by how it treats its … [fill in the gap]. In the context of the Council of Europe campaign against trafficking on February 15th-16th and as we run up to International Women’s Day on March 8th, the word(s) in that gap could be “women”. But they could also be “organisations that help women”.

And our record on that leaves a great deal to be desired.

At a seminar organised by the women’s information and support centre Apanemi on February 14th, lawyer and former member of parliament, Androula Vassiliou, noted with regret that women’s organisations in Cyprus were “sleeping”.

As an example, she cited the fact that only two women – herself and another female MP – had written to newspapers to demand that the reshuffled Council of Ministers should include a woman.

Cyprus has come a long way since Vassiliou’s own application to become a judge 30 years ago was thrown in the bin, but it still has a long way to go, she said.

Cyprus remains the only country within the EU that has no female minister, for example, and no women take part in the National Council that advises the President.

But perhaps more telling of how Cypriot society treats its women is the tale of why Apanemi, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), feels it has to break free of any state funding.

Apanemi was founded in 2004 as a not-for-profit, limited company.

It had a range of departments offering professional support, including a help-line; a shelter; a gender violence department; a department for asylum seekers, refugees and victims of torture; a vocational training department for disadvantaged groups; and an awareness-raising department for campaigns, lobbying, research, monitoring and reporting.

Like any non-governmental organisation (NGO) in the heart of Europe, it had a rigorously applied code of conduct (how many Cypriot companies can boast that?). It had full transparency of financing and, in its service provision, only used qualified professionals who are paid-up members of their professional bodies.

Every two months, it provided statistical and financial statements to the government and other funders.

In three years, it helped thousands of women through its wide range of services: through practical help such as finding a job, to psychological counselling to help them avoid returning to abusive relationships.

Its proudest statistic is that of the 27 women who lived at the shelter from July 2004 to July 2005, thanks to the range of support Apanemi was able to provide, only one has returned to an abusive relationship.

And yet Apanemi is now broke, with no shelters, no staff and no money in the bank.

Only one phone-line remains, direct to the mobile phone of the now unsalaried founder, Julia Kalimeri.

Although only around CYP 6,500 (6.8%), of Apanemi’s funding in 2006 came directly from the state, it has run into difficulties because it is owed CYP 53,000 from government ministries for completed EU projects that are co-financed by the government. (Under co-financing, the government gets money from the EU on the understanding that it will finance, say, half of the project itself.)

Kalimeri is confident that the interior ministry will now finally pay its large bill within a matter of days, but she says that there is an “inexcusable delay” from another ministry which she is reluctant to name.

 

How to crush an NGO

 

How did a serious, professionally run NGO fall so low?

Apanemi’s greatest sin has been precisely its professionalism. It has dared, in Cyprus, to behave as a real NGO: not afraid to criticise the government when criticism is due, and not afraid to put its mission – helping vulnerable women –  above any friends or favours.

And worse for some, it is run by a woman, and a Greek, who has not been taught the Cypriot art of keeping your mouth shut.

In return, this more-transparent-than-water organisation has had police and investigators crawling over it, has been accused of taking money for itself (by people who have evidently not checked the publicly available finances), helping “only foreign women” (in a country that should be ashamed of its record of trafficking foreign women) and of not using professionals (despite its consistent practice of only using professionals). 

Maybe there are so-called NGOs in Cyprus that one accuse of such things. There are certainly other NGOs which have been prodded by the powers that be into uncontroversial areas, or just “finger-painting” as one diplomat once put it.

What keeps these organisations working is that they do not get up the ministers’ noses, so their contractually pledged co-financing does not dry up, and their prominent supporters do not get phone calls telling them not to attend their seminars.

Perhaps this is why we hear so often these days that civil society is dead in Cyprus.

The state machinery has won in one way. Apanemi will no longer involve itself in any programmes that involve state funding, which could limit the range of services it has to offer. But despite a very determined attempt to crush its reputation through false innuendos and pressure on its supporters, the state apparatus has not made Apanemi disappear.

Apanemi has pledged that in future it will depend only on non-state financing, and that it will continue its work, even if that means “just one person, with one voice and one computer” in the words of Kalimeri.

But if Apanemi does not exist a year from today, then we shall have to think how we judge the society that allowed it to be crushed.