Animus and the fight for human rights of women: a combination of professionalism and activism.
Animus Association is a member of GAATW in Bulgaria. In May 2023, Vivian Cartagena from GAATW International Secretariat conducted this interview with Nadia Kozhouharova, the Director of Animus, to learn more about the organisation’s history, current programmes, successes and challenges ahead.
Vivian: Hi Nadia, thank you for agreeing to do this interview with me. Let’s start with some history. When was Animus founded and why?
Nadia: Animus was founded in 1994 by two women – Maria and Nadejda - who were both psychologists. Their idea was to provide a space for professional psychological services for victims of violence because there were no such services in Bulgaria at the time. The organisation began as a small team comprised of five psychologists, which I joined in 1995. Soon, we started working with victims of domestic violence. We entered the field of human trafficking in 1997 when we had our first research project against trafficking, and in 1998 we joined La Strada, which at that time, was a project for prevention of trafficking in women in Central and Eastern Europe. In 1997 we established a helpline for victims of violence and in 2000 we opened our crisis centre for victims of violence. In approximately 2010, we started working with children. Step by step, we developed all the services that we have today.
Vivian: Where does the name Animus come from? And the logo? It is a witch on a broomstick, what does it mean?
Nadia: Animus comes from Carl Jung’s theory about the two parts of the human psyche. Anima is the female part representing the gentle, loving, and soft side of the psyche, whereas Animus is the male part representing the assertive and strong side. We decided that we can be a women’s organisation with more Animus because we need to fight for a lot of changes in our society and most of all for the human rights of women.
The logo was created by a friend, a male designer, and as a reaction to the attitudes people had towards us and our young organisation. They were saying, ‘‘Look at this women’s organisation, they’re witches’’ – amongst other bad names that they used for us. We said to ourselves, well, if they call us witches, then we’ll be witches. And so we stuck with that logo. But it’s a young and beautiful witch. Now, since we are nearly 30 years old, we are rebranding. So, the logo might get changed as it is no longer up to date. However, we have a lot of memorabilia with the witch logo that people really like.
Vivian: Can you tell me about the main issues that you are addressing now?
Nadia: Currently, we are lobbying for amendments in domestic violence legislation to prevent violence and to protect the victims. This is not easy because of the unstable political situation in Bulgaria. In the past two years, we had five elections, with short-lived parliaments and only caretaker governments. Furthermore, Bulgaria didn’t ratify the Council of Europe Istanbul convention on domestic violence and gender-based violence, which provides for very comprehensive response to these issues. Conservatives got all worked up because it uses the term “gender” and claimed that the Convention was “gender propaganda” and would lead to “introduction of third gender”, same-sex marriage, influx of transgender refugees and what not (there were no such things in the Convention) Then the Constitutional Court ruled that the Convention was incompatible with the Bulgarian Constitution because there is no “gender” in the country but only two sexes – male and female.. Some political parties bought into this hysteria and now they don’t want to vote on the amendments to domestic violence legislation because they fear it will lead to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. Our job in this situation is to lobby with every party. Besides lobbying, we have our regular direct work with victims, we have approximately 2000 cases per year. We work on all kinds of issues such as providing them with legal support (our latest programme), phycological support, counselling, social support, accommodation, and empowerment.
When it comes to trafficking, we are witnessing an interesting change in Bulgaria. Historically, we’ve been a country of origin and until recently, we only worked with Bulgarian victims who were returning from western Europe. Now with the wars in Syria and Ukraine, we have a lot of refugees. Refugees from Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, etc., are never identified as victims of trafficking. However, sometimes when they come to us for other reasons and we can gain their trust, we find that along their migration route they were exploited. We are trying to place the issue of identification of victims of trafficking among refugees higher on the government agenda so that victims can access services and protection.
Vivian: What type of trafficking were these victims mainly involved in, sexual exploitation, labour?
Nadia: It’s different but both. We are starting to realise that the institutions here may never be able to adequately identify victims. However, victims too don’t necessarily want to be identified because they think of Bulgaria as a transit country. They don’t want to be involved in criminal proceedings, which they fear may lead to their deportation. Therefore, we lobby for services for all vulnerable women migrants whether they are trafficking victims or not. The most important thing we can do is to support these women so that we can prevent trafficking and exploitation as most of them will continue their migration to Western Europe where the risk remains high. We want to support them here so that they are stable before they continue their journey.
Vivian: So, you also work in prevention?
Nadia: Yes, we do a lot of traditional prevention work by providing information and raising awareness.
Vivian: Do you work within a network in Bulgaria?
Nadia: Yes, of course. We work with other women’s rights organisations, crisis centres, service providers and government institutions - the whole system. We have very old partners and we are well recognised. For example, the Sofia municipality has delegated its biggest social service to us. Here, we provide psychological and social services to families and children. We have a special “Mother and baby” unit where very young or underprivileged mothers, or pregnant women, can stay for up to a year and a half. This allows them to keep their baby and to care for her/him adequately.
Vivian: When you work with these women, either through prevention or direct assistance, how do you incorporate the lessons learnt from them, or from working with them, in your work?
Nadia: This is our most important task because all our activities - advocacy, lobby, prevention, assistance, etc. - are informed by our direct work with the victims. By working with them through difficult times and providing them with help and support, we see what works and what doesn’t. It also helps us to formulate prevention messages that speak directly to them, such as, what are their hopes/desires, why do they want to go abroad. We learn about different cultures, perspectives, and positioning. For example, you may not be able to place a woman from Syria in a job because she was raised to stay at home, she’s never worked in paid employment before. Therefore, she may have a different perspective about what her life should be. The direct work with victims helps us develop new programmes for empowerment tailored to various cultures and ways of thinking.
Vivian: Right, you can’t just apply one way of thinking to all women. So how do you tailor your services to different groups?
Nadia: To give you an example, we now meet Ukrainian clients who are a very different group. The women from the Middle East and Africa have similar experiences and problems because they come from different cultures, and have a different legal status here. But Ukrainians can read, grasp the language, and understand the culture here because it’s similar to Ukraine. They also have the right to work, to access housing, healthcare, and social benefits and their children can go to school. So, these two groups have very different needs, and we need to spend time with the women, understand their specific challenges, and find the best solutions to these challenges together with them.
Vivian: What would you say is unique about Animus?
Nadia: At our core, we are a professional organisation for psychology, psychotherapy, and social work and I think this is what makes us unique. Thanks to our programmes and projects, we can provide qualified professional help to people in need. Normally, these services are very expensive, but because we are a non-profit organisation, we can offer them for free. This gives people access to services that they would have never had access to in other circumstances. The service is developed according to professional standards like confidentiality with very clear procedures of admitting clients and working with them. At the same time, we are an NGO and we can also do all the activist lobbying and prevention work. So we have a combination of professionalism and activism.
Vivian: Thank you very much for your time, Nadia.