Maria Moodie is a member of the Garden Court Chambers Public Law Team.
Maria Moodie was invited to speak at the two-day conference of the ‘Network of Specialised Lawyers and NGOs assisting victims of Violence Against Women’, that took place in Strasbourg, France from 18 to 19 September 2025.
The conference focussed on the legal support and representation of migrant, asylum-seeking and refugee victims of violence against women through strategic litigation challenging systemic structural and legal barriers that inhibit escape and deny effective protection.
The conference was hosted by GREVIO (the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on action against violence against women and domestic violence) that acts as the monitoring body of signatory State’s compliance with the Istanbul Convention.
Maria has longstanding and extensive experience of supporting GREVIO in their mandate of evaluating Member State’s compliance with the requirements of Chapter VII of the Istanbul Convention pertaining to protection and support services available to migrant and asylum-seeking women fleeing all forms of sexual and gender-based violence.
To date, Maria has been appointed by the Council of Europe as the International Expert in GREVIO’s baseline evaluation monitoring visits and reporting on France (2018), The Netherlands (2019), Belgium (2019), Bosnia and Herzegovina (2022), Norway (2022), Ireland (2023), Greece (2023), the United Kingdom (2024) and Latvia (2025).
Maria authored Chapter VII of GREVIO’s Mid-Term Horizontal Review, published in 2021, and will author the forthcoming and updated Horizontal Review report that will identify recurring areas of non-compliance and gaps in protection, for migrant and asylum-seeking women, across the 36 baseline evaluations completed to date.
