11th April 2025
10 min read
Kyrgyzstan: Legal Amendments Aim to Strengthen Punishment for Sexual Violence against Survivors with Disabilities
The Team
Legal Advisor, Eurasia
Europe and Central Asia
Dariana Gryaznova joined Equality Now in September 2022. As the Legal Advisor, Eurasia, her main role is contributing to Equality Now’s reports and submissions to regional and international mechanisms, strategic litigation and developing strategies with local partners on violence against women and girls, including sexual violence.
Dariana contributed to Equality Now’s recent reports and publications, including:
Dariana Gryaznova is a Russian-qualified lawyer who has been working in the human rights sector since 2013. She has been litigating human rights cases domestically and before the ECtHR and UN treaty bodies, focusing on access to information, freedom of expression, women’s rights and non-discrimination and climate change.
In 2019, she was awarded the Chevening Scholarship, the UK government’s international awards program, which has been developing future leaders since 1983.
Born in Siberia, Russia, Dariana is currently based in the EU. She is fluent in Russian and English and is learning Spanish. She holds an LLB in law from Saint Petersburg State University and an LLM (Distinction) in Human Rights Law from the Queen Mary University of London.
Dariana has a personal blog (in Russian) where she shares her thoughts on violence against women in Russia and globally.
11th April 2025
10 min read
Kyrgyzstan: Legal Amendments Aim to Strengthen Punishment for Sexual Violence against Survivors with Disabilities
10th October 2024
10 min read
Traditions, discrimination, and poverty are driving child and forced marriage in Eurasia
13th May 2024
11 min read
Trial of ex-minister for wife’s murder triggers much-needed reckoning on domestic violence in Kazakhstan
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5 May 2026
As the African Commission adopts a new Advocacy Framework to strengthen implementation of the Maputo Protocol, a parallel effort to introduce a regressive Charter risks undermining decades of progress. Equality Now calls for decisive action to safeguard existing protections, ensure accountability from Member States, and work collaboratively with community leaders to advance a future where the rights of women and girls are fully realised.
5 May 2026
Equality Now’s shadow report calls for urgent reform of discriminatory nationality laws across Africa that deny women equal rights to confer citizenship to their children and spouses. These laws heighten the risk of statelessness, poverty, family separation, and violence, undermining the fundamental right to nationality.
Grounded in regional advocacy and human rights standards, the report urges African Union Member States to enshrine gender equality in nationality laws, centre affected communities in reform processes, and sign and ratify the AU Nationality Protocol without delay.
16 April 2026
UPR submission on Tajikistan addressing violence against women and girls, child and forced marriage, disability inclusion, legal reform, and survivor-centred protections.