Polish women’s rights groups hit by raids, funding cuts and smear campaigns, report finds

‘Activists have targets on their backs simply for helping survivors of abuse or for supporting basic rights to reproductive health and peaceful protest,’ says Human Rights Watch campaigner

Demonstrators at a pro-choice protest in front of the Polish parliament in Warsaw (AFP/Getty)

The Polish government is hampering the efforts of women’s rights groups with raids, denial of funding, public smear campaigns and disciplinary action, a report has found.

The Human Rights Watch study warns the tactics are putting women’s rights and safety at grave risk – saying the government’s overt disdain for women’s rights and failure to counter misinformation campaigns has cultivated a climate of fear among campaigners.

Activists said the actions of the government also put women and girls – including survivors of violence – off pursuing help.

The report looks at how the ruling Law and Justice-led government has targeted women’s rights groups since coming to power in 2015 through raids and lack of funding – often with little warning and no clear justification.

The party is founded on a socially conservative Catholic ideology and has pursued a restrictive agenda with regards to female reproductive rights.

Hillary Margolis, a women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “Using scare tactics to cripple these groups is just another attempt by the Polish government to roll back women’s rights.

“Activists have targets on their backs simply for helping survivors of abuse or for supporting basic rights to reproductive health and peaceful protest.”

Government agencies have put employees who support women’s rights protests or who team up with women’s rights groups before disciplinary hearings and threatened their jobs, the report found.

The government has at times appeared to support – or failed to refute – public smear campaigns by the ruling party and other politicians and church-backed groups that mischaracterise women’s rights organisations and their work as dangerous to families and “traditional values”.

The report found a lack of government funding has led organisations to cut back on staff, reduce their geographic scope, and shrink vital services for survivors of domestic and other gender-based violence. This is said to have led to considerable gaps in shelter, counselling and legal support.

Agata Teutsch, director of Autonomia Foundation, which conducts workshops in schools to counter gender-based violence and discrimination, said personal smears by conservative politicians and in the media have posed a risk to the work carried out by her organisation.

“There were articles that mentioned me by name, that said I’m a dangerous person for kids,” she said. “For some communities or some people, [now] I’m someone not to cooperate with, I’m not someone you can trust.”

Researchers spoke to people who have experienced intimidation or retaliation due to taking part in peaceful women’s rights protests or liasing with groups working on women’s rights. Five women said their public employment came under threat, including three teachers and one school headmistress who were subjected to disciplinary proceedings, though no grounds for disciplinary action were found.

Anna Glogowska-Balcerzak, coordinator of the Women’s Rights Centre in Lodz in central Poland, which provides support for women survivors of violence, said they have been forced to radically cut services outside the city.

“We had clients from all over the region. Now we have only one support group in one small town,” she said.

She said this was having a fundamental impact on women experiencing domestic violence: “Some women stay with their abusive partners because they have nowhere else to go.”

Human Rights Watch called on the European Union and its member states to hold Poland to account for failing to implement EU policy on equality, women’s rights and violence against women.

Ms Margolis said: “The Polish government is punishing not only the activists and organisations it targets, but the women who rely on them for lifesaving help. Allowing this to happen sends a dangerous message that women can’t count on the EU’s commitment to protect them.”

The purported clampdown on women’s rights campaigners is taking place in a climate of restrictive reproductive policies for women in Poland, which has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

In Poland, abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or when a female’s life is at risk or if the fetus is irreparably damaged.

Under the Law and Justice government, access to the morning-after pill, which has been rebranded “the early abortion pill”, has also been restricted since July 2017 with the introduction of a requirement for a prescription for emergency contraception.

In October 2016, legislation was proposed to completely outlaw abortion. The plans prompted around 30,000 people to assemble, despite awful weather, in Warsaw’s Castle Square, chanting: “We want doctors, not missionaries!”

The far-reaching protests were successful and triggered lawmakers to vote against the restrictive legislation.