What you’ll find in the e-book:

• Legal foundations that guarantee a child’s right to continuous contact with their parents
• A concrete manual with step-by-step procedures for asserting your rights
• Information about who to contact in case of rights violations
• An explanation of why parental presence is crucial for a hospitalized child

No one is allowed to separate you from your newborn without your consent. You and your newborn have the right to remain together at all times, even if your newborn is born small,
premature or with medical conditions that require extra care.

— Charter of Respectful Maternity Care

Why is this e-book important?

We have long observed a disturbing practice of violations of children’s and parents‘ rights by healthcare providers. These include for example:

• Routine separation of prematurely born children from their parents
• Lack of beds for parents
• Charging fees for hospitalization or meals for non-breastfeeding parents
• Charging fees based on the age of the hospitalized child

Did you know? Parents‘ rights can only be restricted and minor children can only be separated from their parents against the parents‘ will by a court decision based on law.

Download the e-book

As we know, awareness is the first step toward change. Download our e-book and gain tools for advocating for your child’s rights in healthcare facilities.

Our e-book is also available in Slovak, Hungarian, and Ukrainian language versions.

Acknowledgments

This e-book is part of our project “Closeness Works Wonders – Parents of a Hospitalized Child Are Not Visitors”. Ebook was created thanks to the support of more than 200 people who contributed €4,428 in a crowdfunding campaign on the Donio platform.

We also thank the Open Society Foundation Bratislava for supporting this project with a matching grant of €4,000 as part of the Stronger Roots for Civil Society Program.

Special thanks go to the law firm BP Advokáti, specifically Mgr. Lucia Vaculínová and Mgr. Marek Šimka, for their expert and precise preparation of the legal opinion on children’s rights during hospitalization. The analysis became a key foundation for this e-book.

We believe it is essential that this information reaches people living in Slovakia who do not speak Slovak as their native language. The English translation of this e-book was kindly provided on a voluntary basis by Urszula Leginus.

No child should be alone in hospital

Thanks to your financial support, we can help parents better advocate for their rights and the rights of their children during hospitalization. We create educational materials, raise awareness, and we also provide individual counseling.

I want to support Ženské kruhy.

Update as of 24.2.2026: We have updated the Ebook with information regarding the Ministry of Health guideline. We have also published a legal commentary (in Slovak language) to the guideline.

The post Children’s Rights in Hospital: A Parent’s Right to Be Present appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

The initiative proposes a voluntary EU-level financial mechanism to support access to safe and legal abortion care across borders. Importantly, it does not interfere with national laws. Instead, it would allow Member States willing to provide cross-border care to receive EU funding and reimbursement. Therefore, it is a practical solution to a real public health issue.

The letter was coordinated by the Center for Reproductive Rights and sent to European Commission on 3 February 2026. Now, the Commission is expected to issue its official response on 25 February 2026.

More than 1 million EU citizens have signed the initiative. In addition, a majority of the European Parliament has expressed support. And now, 170 organizations from across Europe, including Women’s Circles, have added their voices.

At Women’s Circles, we have spent years supporting women through some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. For example women talk with us about their traumatic birth experiences, postpartum mental health struggles, grief, and isolation. As a result, we know what it means when healthcare systems fail to provide respectful, accessible care. In this context, access to safe abortion is part of comprehensive reproductive healthcare. Therefore, we believe every woman deserves the ability to make decisions about her own body without unnecessary barriers.

That is why we signed.

You can read the full letter and the complete list of signatories here.

Finally, follow the campaign on social media: #MyVoiceMyChoice

Updated 25 February 2026

Today, the European Commission issued its decision – and it is historic. For the first time, EU funds can be used to support access to safe abortion care.

The decision confirms that funding can cover not only healthcare services, but also travel costs. This is especially important for women who need to travel abroad or require urgent care when their health or life is at risk.

It also means that the European Union now clearly recognises access to safe abortion as part of healthcare. The ESF+ programme, with €142 billion available, can already be used for this purpose. What happens next will depend on how Member States turn this possibility into real support for women.

The decision is not perfect and does not include new funding commitments. Still, it is an important step forward. For the first time, it is clearly acknowledged that the EU can help finance access to safe abortion.

What matters now is that this becomes real, accessible support for women in practice.

The post We Added Our Voice – open letter to EU Comission appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

Fenestra, founded in 1996, is a grass-roots women’s NGO. Our vision is a society, in which every woman is free to make decisions about her life and fully exercise her rights and freedoms without violence and discrimination. Apart from providing direct help and support to women – survivors of intimate partner violence in our counselling centre, Fenestra has had a long history of advocating for women’s rights, awareness raising and campaigning, training of professionals and developing multi-agency cooperation in the field of preventing and eliminating violence against women. Fenestra is a member of the European network Women Against Violence Europe

The Center for Civil and Human Rights (Poradňa pre občianske a ľudské práva, „Poradňa“) from 2002 has addressed discrimination against Roma minority in Slovakia in various areas of public life. It has been particularly active in the protection of reproductive rights of Roma women. Poradňa pursues its mission by human rights monitoring, strategic litigation as well advocacy activities. It closely links its work with extensive cooperation with many local Roma women activists.

Women’s Circles (Ženské kruhy) founded in 2011 by women is an independent civic association focusing on the field of maternity care and the rights therein. One of the goals is that respect, dignity, and the freedom of choice for women in pregnancy and childbirth would become self-evident.

In the section devoted to obstetric care, we drew attention to:

• Ill-treatment of women and new-borns in facility-based childbirth
• COVID-19 pandemic impact on reproductive healthcare
• Poor access to reproductive healthcare and information for women from Ukraine with temporary shelter status
• Absence of services for women in the postpartum period

The post Joint submission to the CEDAW appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

Authors: Janka Debrecéniová, Miroslava Kotríková Rašmanová, Lýdia Marošiová

The post Childbirth-Rights-Pandemic appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

The measures and other steps that were undertaken in Slovakia during the pandemic (not necessarily with a clear and existing legal basis and not necessarily meeting the legal requirements of necessity and proportionality) had numerous negative impacts on various groups.

During the first months of the pandemic, several healthcare providers canceled or reduced the number of routine prenatal check-ups (recommended by the healthcare system and covered by health insurance). This concerned CTG monitoring, testing for gestational diabetes, foetal screening, and regular check-ups concerning the hematology treatment or high-risk pregnancy.

The post Submission to the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

The post Women’s Circles – about organization appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

“[The longer waiting time] would postpone the medical treatment of women and tie up the hands of doctors in acting in the best interest of their patients,” said Miroslava Rašmanová of the Ženské Kruhy association, advocating the rights of women.

Photo source: Denník N, Tomáš Benedikovič

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The Bill also seeks to ban abortion advertising, which in practice means doctors informing patients they offer terminations. It could even lead to a ban on medical instruments used to perform abortion and surgical being included in catalogues. There are already regions in Slovakia where no doctors or hospitals offer abortion – this change makes it harder for women to know where to go to access care. 

The post Byline Times: Slovakia’s Latest Abortion Battle Linked to International Anti-Gender Networks appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

BRATISLAVA, 29 October 2020. Slovak non-governmental organisations Občan, demokracia a zodpovednosť (Citizen, Democracy and Accountability (CDA)) and Ženské kruhy (Women’s Circles) warn of the increasing number of violations of the human rights of women and newborns in childbirth in Slovak hospitals during the current pandemic crisis. The separation of mothers from their newborns is one of the most severe forms of these violations. The organisations urgently stress that healthcare facilities and the state must ensure that childbirth care is provided in compliance with human rights and medical standards even in this complicated situation.

CDA and Women’s Circles had already warned of the deteriorating situation with respect to the violations of the rights of women and children in birthing facilities during the first wave of the pandemic. The same was observed in the second wave as well. “For example, newborn babies continue to be separated from their mothers, and this practice gets even worse if the woman giving birth has tested positive for COVID-19 or shows its typical symptoms. In a number of cases, women with COVID-19 have been discharged from hospital the next day after giving birth, but their babies remained in the hospital without any contact with their mothers whatsoever. There are also cases where parents have no contact with their infants kept at intensive care units for several days or even weeks. The pictures the hospital staff are sending to parents via mobile phones are a poor compensation for the lack of contact and cannot substitute for the missing close parent-infant bond,” says Miroslava Rašmanová of Women’s Circles.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), even new mothers with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 should be supported in practicing skin-to-skin contact immediately after childbirth, in breastfeeding, and in sharing a room with their babies for 24 hours a day. Confirmed or suspected COVID-19 infection should not be considered a reason to preventively separate mothers from their babies and not breastfeed them. According to the WHO, health risks associated with the separation and no breastfeeding exceed the health risks of newborns being infected by the coronavirus. Including with respect to the pandemic, WHO has emphasised that all women, including those with COVID-19 or its symptoms, have the right to a positive childbirth experience.

 “It’s extremely alarming to see the Ministry of Health making public statements about the possibility of a longer separation of newborns from their mothers with COVID-19. Just as no one would think of taking older children from their parents who have tested positive, there are no legal grounds that could justify this kind of practice in the case of newborns. Moreover, separating mothers from their newborn babies constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment under international law,” explains Janka Debrecéniová of CDA.

CDA and Women’s Circles note that they also have information about other forms of violations of the rights of women in childbirth during the pandemic. One such violation is the non-compliance with the principle which requires that every medical intervention must only be performed with the free and informed consent of the person concerned. Other violations also include denying the right of women to have a companion of choice present during childbirth by some hospitals or making the accompaniment conditional upon presenting a negative test for COVID-19 procured by the companion, or upon purchasing hygienic packages from hospitals. Debrecéniová emphasises that such practice is again in conflict both with the women’s fundamental rights in childbirth and with the WHO recommendations for the time of the pandemic. In addition, it is especially discriminatory against women from socially disadvantaged backgrounds because having a most recent PCR test always available is neither cheap nor logistically simple.

The organisations note that they are fully aware of the fact that the current situation regarding the pandemic is grave and that the hospitals and their staff must operate under extremely difficult conditions. “The recent monitoring undertaken jointly by our organisations – whose results will be published in the next few weeks – has shown that women understand the need for measures to counter the pandemic, they follow them voluntarily and largely proactively. However, the severity of the situation requires that more effort is also invested in improving communication and building the sense of safety and trust by the medical personnel because, at the end of the day, it may benefit the healthcare professionals, too,” concludes Rašmanová.

The post Violations of Women’s and Newborns’ Rights in Childbirth Getting Worse in Slovak Hospitals during Pandemic appeared first on Ženské kruhy.

“This is what happens when you like men too much.” These words were spoken by a Zagreb doctor to a young woman during a surgical abortion. The woman then had her womb scraped without anesthetic, while the surgeon joked with his medical team about her sex life.

Her devastating testimony is recorded in a complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right To Health by the Croatian Parents’ Rights organization RODA. The organization invited women to submit their experiences of enduring reproductive healthcare without anesthetic under the campaign banner „Breaking The Silence“ (#PrekinimoŠutnju). In the space of a weekend, they received 400 handwritten submissions.

“The stories involved women who had biopsies on their uterus, cervix or vagina without anesthetic,” RODA’s Head of Reproductive Rights Daniela Drandic told me over the phone.

“There were stories of women who had been through medically assisted fertility treatments and had their eggs removed without anesthetic. Women being sutured after childbirth, having their placenta manually removed, and surgical abortions or miscarriages, all without anesthetic.”

In some shocking cases, Drandic explained, “women were offered a shot of hard liquor before a procedure to make it easier.” One woman was scolded by her doctor while having samples taken from her reproductive organs. He said: “you didn’t cry while having sex, so shut up now.”

This is the reality of “obstetric violence” in Europe. From the UK to Ukraine, women are failed by the medical establishment and forced to endure procedures relating to their reproductive health without adequate pain relief. In some cases, the women’s experiences led to further complications such as torn uteruses, and PTSD.

Across the Adriatic Sea in Italy, birth activist and co-founder of Obstetric Violence Observation In Italy – or OVOItalia – Elena Skoko has collected similar stories via the campaign Mothers Have A Voice.

Over Skype, Skoko told me “many gynecological procedures are done without pain relief or the anesthetic is not working properly and women are not believed when they complain. Other times, as in childbirth, pain relief is forced on women. Women’s point of views [are] not taken into account when it comes to their experiences and to the care they need or want in maternity and childbirth. They are infantilized and made to feel inferior, which puts their life and the life of their babies at risk.”

OVOItalia has collected stories from women experiencing verbal abuse and even physical assault while in labor. One common technique called the Kristella Maneuver (the applying of pressure to the uterus to assist in vaginal birth), OVOItalia co-founder Alessandra Battisti described to me as “very traumatic for women because they do not expect it. The women feel they can’t breathe and many times they have broken ribs.”

THE LAST ACCEPTABLE FORM OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

As with Croatia’s „Breaking the Silence“, OVOItalia invited women to submit their testimonials of obstetric violence, including abuse during childbirth. They then conducted a nationwide survey to gather data on women’s experiences of reproductive healthcare.

“Our campaign is the first time in Italy so many women have talked about their personal experiences of childbirth,” Battisti told me over Skype. “Women used to talk only in closed spaces among a few friends. There was not a public speech about it.”

According to Skoko, this silence was, in part, “because we didn’t have a discourse around this form of violence. Women, mothers, activists, researchers — they knew what they were talking about but it was very difficult to frame this experience of traumatic birth. Then in 2006, Venezuela made a law on gendered violence and they called this ‘obstetric violence’.”

But what is behind what US writer Elisa Albert calls “the last acceptable form of violence against women”? Why are women forced to endure painful and upsetting procedures without anesthetic? And why are women experiencing such unnecessary pain and trauma in the delivery room?

“Firstly it’s a multi-generational problem that has been going on for as long as hospitals have existed,” Drandic explained. “So when a woman says to her mum or sister or friend that she had a painful procedure, the response she gets is that this is just the way it is done. Secondly it’s a culture of reproductive healthcare that’s offered to women. We’ve had stories of trainee doctors questioning why women aren’t given some kind of pain relief and the response is always that’s just the way we do it.”

“I think it has a lot to do with the cultural idea that women have to suffer in order to be worthy,” she continued. “To be worthy of being mothers, to be worthy of being women, to be worthy of being anything. It’s a woman’s job, right? To deal with pain. That’s the idea we need to be challenging.”

Slovakian activist Zuzana Kriskova, who co-authored the report Women Mothers Bodies One and Two, agreed. “The rights to make decisions on your own body is not something you are taught from infancy,” she told me over Skype. “Women are taught to behave in a pre-approved way — not to provoke or be emotional. There’s an image of the good mother who sacrifices herself for her baby, and the pain of women is seen as good for them.”

For Alessandra Battisti, the causes of obstetric violence can also be explained by a refusal to believe women when they talk about their lived experience — especially when it comes to pain.

“It’s the same pattern that we observe with any other forms of violence against women,’ Battisti told me. “Women are considered to be exaggerating. When women say they feel pain, as after a c-section or episiotomy, the doctors tell them ‘no you are not in pain’. People think it’s only the woman’s view, and the stereotype that women tell things which are not true is still very strong.”

Kriskova reflected this analysis, telling me “male doctors are seen as having the knowledge and the knowledge that women have of their own bodies is seen as not reliable or acceptable.”

YOUR PAIN IS NOT POSSIBLE, HE SAYS

This idea that a woman’s account of her own pain is not valid or trustworthy is supported with evidence collected by OVOItalia. The campaign has received stories from women “who were receiving a c-section before the anesthesia was starting, so they could feel the cut with the knife. But when the women say they feel the pain, the surgeon says it’s not possible.”

In Hungary, the activist group Másállapotot a szülészetben (Changes in Maternity Care) has also collected women’s stories, as well as organizing direct actions such as flashmobs. They argue that “obstetric violence is a form of gender-based violence widely accepted ‘in the sake of the interest of the baby’. Women need to accept that the interest of the baby comes first [to medical doctors], and their bodily integrity and self-sovereignty is not a priority in any way.”

This is why, according to Kriskova, “we need to inform society that women have rights. We need to change the attitudes of healthcare personnel, who don’t see women as people competent to make decisions about their own bodies.”

UTERUSES ARE STILL TABOO

Earlier this year, Croatian MP Ivana Ninčević Lesandrić experienced first-hand what it meant not be believed when she spoke out in the country’s parliament about her own experience of obstetric violence. Discussing this with me over email, she explained how “I came to the emergency department because I was bleeding, and they told me I was having a miscarriage and they had to do a cutterage procedure. After that, they tied my hands and feet, and a procedure was done so that I felt every second of it.”

In response, the Parliament’s Chairman Goran Jandroković complained that he had been put “in an uncomfortable situation” by the MP sharing an “intimate thing.”

To Ninčević Lesandrić, Jandroković’s comments are an example of how “society has imposed on us to not to talk about reproductive health problems, because it’s something intimate and makes other people uncomfortable. But it is not, the uterus is an organ like any other organ in our body.”

“We need to turn the lights on and change some topics from being taboo to being normalized,” Drandic agrees. “If you aren’t embarrassed about your nose or your elbow why should you be embarrassed about your uterus or vagina? There is no reason to be embarrassed when we are talking about reproductive health.”

WOMEN IN LABOR CAN’T BE TRUSTED

The issues facing women’s reproductive healthcare are not confined to Central and Eastern Europe. When Dr. Wragg Sykes gave birth in France, she “found the whole process was dictatorial”, with the “notion of choice and discussing options really minimal.”

Dr. Wragg Sykes is clear in her email to me that her childbirth “wasn’t traumatic or dramatic in that I needed any emergency procedures […] and both were overall positive experiences.”

Despite this, her struggle to have her wishes respected, meant Dr. Wragg Sykes felt her first labor ended up “far more distressing and exhausting than it needed to be”. The “very rigid” system in France meant that rather than having the freedom to move around and find a birthing position that was comfortable, she had to “get onto a raised bed and lie on my back, which often increases the pain.” She told me “I was also really upset at being pressured to use stirrups which I felt were dehumanising.”

The activists at Másállapotot a szülészetben argue that more needs to be done to improve women’s freedoms during labor — recommending among other things that women “have free movement during labor and the pushing stage”.

But for many women, there is an inherent danger in speaking out during childbirth and asking for a different kind of care — e.g. natural birth or wanting to move freely during labor. Kriskova told me that, in Slovakia, “when a woman is seen as un-cooperative, it is seen as an excuse to abuse her. She is not obeying so it’s dealt with via manipulation, threats and the last resort of physical violence including slaps and pushing women’s legs apart.”

This attitude all relates to the societal belief that women are not competent to make informed decisions about their bodies. “Even if you ask to give birth in a different kind of position,” Kriskova explained, “it can be interpreted by the staff that are you telling them they are doing things wrong. So some may want to teach you a lesson and the violence can escalate very quickly.”

WHEN THEY CUT YOU LIVE AND WITHOUT CONSENT

The widespread practice of episiotomy followed by the so-called “husband stitch” is raised repeatedly in RODA’s complaint. This practice is so widespread, and can have such damaging side-effects, that some activists are going so far as to compare it to genital mutilation.

Many women report physical pain and PTSD symptoms following an episiotomy — particularly when the procedure is carried out without informed or proper consent. In Croatia, one woman told RODA:

“I asked them not to cut me. The doctor said I would tear if they don’t do it and how will I ever give birth if I can’t stand the pain. The physical pain went away but the emotional pain never. I remember that every time I see a pair of scissors. I still have nightmares about it.”

In Slovakia, Women-Mothers-Bodies conducted a qualitative survey on 15 women and 10 doctors and midwifes. A further online survey yet to be published gathered responses from 1800 women which revealed that half the respondents described their experience of suturing being “painful or very painful.”

During stitching, some women were denied painkillers, and if they complained were told they could handle it — that it was only a few stitches and not a big deal. Yet despite this, many women still rated the treatment they received as “respectful (although 40% recognized it was not) – even though they were describing disrespectful and painful treatment,” Kriskova told me.

“There needs to be further research on this topic,” she continued. “But the hypothesis is that this may be because of high normalization of this practice. It may also be an example of women modifying their emotional responses during childbirth to be quiet, and seen as a good woman or mother.”

Meanwhile in Bulgaria, a woman contacted NewsMavens with her own painful experience. Following a difficult labor, her doctor became “extremely aggressive and by the time of the episiotomy she started the sewing phase before the anesthesia had come into effect. I could feel everything.” She said that, due to the disrespectful and traumatic way she was treated, “my experience as a mother was ruined.”

The pain and lack of consent can leave women feeling, according to Battisti, that “this practice is a kind of mutilation of their genitals, and many experience infections and problems.”

It’s shocking to hear women describing episiotomy as a form of female genital mutilation, but it’s a sentiment echoed by Drandic. “We talk about things like FGM as an othered problem – we say look how how good we are when other countries are doing that. But 50-60% of women in Central Europe are getting cut during childbirth and we’re not discussing this.”

WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE — POWER DYNAMICS IN HOSPITALS

Part of the problem facing women is that the hospital experience is not designed around a maternal experience and a women-centred approach. This patriarchal attitude towards women’s bodies and experiences was described by Másállapotot a szülészetben, who explained how in Hungary:

“The maternity care system is engrained with gender-based power dynamics on many levels: client (women) and physician (mostly men); midwives, nurses (women) and physician (mostly men); affected population (women and children) and policy-makers or decision-makers (men).”

Meanwhile, Kriskova’s research revealed that “all the rules are focused on the needs of the healthcare personnel, and women should just fit into this. It should be the other way around. Women should be the decision-makers and they are the ones who should be centered, not made to follow some made-up rules.”

These entrenched power dynamics in the medical profession could be linked to the rise of cesarean births in Romania over the last three decades. In 1990, only 7.2% of births in the country were via cesarean, rising to 36.3% in 2014. In the capital Bucharest, the rate rises to over 60% with some hospitals reporting an 80% cesarean birth rate.

There has been growing concern in Romania that c-sections are being carried out for the convenience of health professionals, not mothers as evidenced by more and more women reporting they felt pushed into having a cesarean. One woman posted online “my gynecologist told me he no longer accepts natural births […] prefers surgery and that the scheduled cesarean is OK for him.” While some women actively choose to have a c-section, others say they felt ill-informed about their choices, or were erroneously told a cesarean is always easier and has fewer risks than a vaginal birth.

Cesareans save women’s and babies’ lives and absolutely must be part of maternal healthcare. But they also come with post-operative complications and a long recovery, and no woman should feel coerced into having a surgical procedure. Andreea Constantin, a woman who wanted a vaginal birth but was pressured into a c-section, told Romanian newspaper The Recorder: “I was exhausted, I was in a state where I was very influenced, and I succumbed. What can you do? You are [in] the doctor’s hands.”

WE BELIEVE YOU – CHANGING CULTURE THROUGH POLICY 

Whether it’s women being slapped in Slovakia and pushed towards c-sections in Romania, patronized in Poland, verbally abused in Italy, or feeling like their decisions about “my own body” are disrespected in Croatia, the patterns of obstetric violence across Europe have one thing in common. They are motivated by what Kriskova called “the idea that we need to save women from themselves.This idea that women are so stupid they can’t make decisions for themselves.” Instead, women must submit to a higher — often male — authority.

This matters, not least because the belief that women should not have a say or autonomy over their own reproductive health is one of the leading arguments used to restrict abortion access. Further, a culture of distrusting and disbelieving women extends to issues around rape and other forms of gender-based violence.  

RODA is now lobbying the Croatian government and healthcare system to “come out with an action plan for the next two years that’s going to include a multi stakeholder approach to reproductive health.” Drandic told me that “this action plan would address the human rights violations that have been going on.”

In this, they have the support of Ivana Ninčević Lesandrić, who stated “I will continue to work with RODA and other groups in Croatia until the government takes concrete steps to guarantee quality and human rights in women’s reproductive healthcare.

But as well as a change in policy, RODA is advocating for a much wider cultural shift in favour of listening to women. They want to encourage women to understand they don’t have to accept invasive and painful procedures without an anesthetic. By breaking the silence on obstetric violence, they hope that women will “advocate for themselves and actively ask for better care.”

For Battisti, the impact of OVOItalia’s campaign has been transformative for women’s empowerment.

“To give a voice to women and to make them realize that what they suffer is real — that was our dream,” she insisted. “It’s important that women start to believe their feelings, their emotions and experiences, and can give a name to what happened. If you understand what happened to you was wrong, and you know it was not your fault, you can start to respect yourself again and raise your self-esteem.”

“We wanted to say to women that we are close to you,” Battisti continued. “We believe you, and we understand you. It seems to be very little but for many women it is important. Through our campaign, women don’t feel alone anymore.”

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