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On the 8th of March to celebrate the International Women’s Day the capital of the Republic of Belarus, Minsk, hosted the second Women Beauty Run jogging race against violence, which was arranged by Belarussian Athletic Federation in cooperation with UNFPA Belarus being the general partner to the event.

Besides promotion of the healthy life style the Beauty Run race was organized in order to attract the attention to the problem of domestic violence in Belarus.

The race was held under the moto "Women against violence” targeting raising of public awareness and mobilizing citizens of Minsk for actions focused at ending domestic violence, especially against women and girls.

Such a city-wide project is a part of the advocacy activities devoted to the International technical assistance project "Strengthening national capacity to counteract gender-based violence (with focus on domestic violence) in the Republic of Belarus". The project has been jointly implemented by UNFPA and Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus in 2016-2018 with the financial support from the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

The top priorities of the project realization feature elaboration of Comprehensive Law on Domestic Violence and development, institutionalization of national mechanisms on comprehensive response to domestic violence as well as strengthening of the model of work with domestic violence offenders/aggressors.

This year the race was attended by 2000 of women of different ages representing 35 cities of the Republic of Belarus and as well 8 countries world-wide.

 

Participants of the race were offered two distances to choose from – 2 kilometers or 5 kilometers – both down the main city avenue. Each runner got the medal and a flower at the finish line. To show the solidarity with the “Women against violence” moto all the jogging-race participants also were wearing the orange bands.

The run was as well attended by the Famous Belarussian Sportsmen and Celebrities. Participation of world-renown Belarusian gymnast and 2012 Olympics winner Lubov Cherkashina.