About 700 young people in 18 educational institutions, NGOs and youth centers from different parts of Moldova will test virtual reality glasses in a pilot project launched on Thursday, through which they will learn, through guided discussions, how to promote gender equality, how to eliminate and prevent violence and what is the difference between flirting and sexual harassment.

The project is piloted by UN Women Moldova, together with the Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) Viitorul, with the financial support of Sweden, as part of a program to eliminate violence against women and girls, IPN reports.

Liubomir Chiriac, executive director of IDIS Viitorul, said that the pilot project will have a positive impact on the young generation. “Negative phenomena related to violence and discrimination remain in society. We need to come up with new approaches as to how to combat these phenomena. Obviously it is not easy to motivate a young person to do a certain thing, if he or she has seen something completely different around him or her. Through digital technologies, we try to make young people live in a better world, to make correct decisions to combat and prevent violence”, said Liubomir Chiriac.

Elena Botezatu, executive director of the International Center La Strada, said that the most recent study conducted by La Strada in 2020 shows that every 10th child aged 7-17 received at least once in the last 12 months a message with sexual content or an indecent proposal on the internet. Moreover, one in 20 children was subjected to some form of harassment via the internet, by receiving malicious comments or by being photoshoped into insulting photos. And practically such experiences happen to at least one child from every class, from every school in the Republic of Moldova, Elena Botezatu warned.

Daniel Iurciuc, psychologist at the Youth Center in Lipcani village, Briceni district, said that victims of sexual harassment feel humiliated, after which they develop anxiety, depression, panic attacks.

Dominika Stojanoska, UN Women’s Representative in Moldova, said that the pilot project is launched ahead of the Global Initiative “16 Days of Activism to Prevent Violence against Women”. “Young people need to work on the underlying causes of inequality between men and women,” said the UN Women representative.