As an official representative of the Government of Aleksandar Stamboliyski, Pateva took part in the International Council of Women (ICW)'s congress held in Kristiania, Norway in 1920, presenting in French, her paper "Положението на жената и детето в България" (The Situation of Woman and Child in Bulgaria). In 1922, she attended the Special Congress of the ICW held in The Hague, making a speech about the perils of war and reiterating the need for total disarmament and cooperation among people to develop a culture of brotherhood, freedom, and self-determination. She made a statement about the political rights of women at the Ninth Congress of the IWSA that was hosted in Rome during 1923. That year, when martial law was declared in response to a "coup d'état" in Bulgaria and the legislature passed a law in favor of capital punishment, she publicly spoke against the policy and wrote articles urging women to oppose the legislation, becoming one of the first to challenge the law. She reiterated her views at the nineteenth Convention of the Bulgarian Women's Union, imploring mothers, who knew the pain of giving birth and raising children, to stand against murder of human life, war, and the death penalty.