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The Department of Public Information’s Development Section worked closely with the European Union to launch a strategic partnership, called Spotlight, for ending violence against women and girls on 20 September 2017. This includes an initial pledge of EUR 500 million from the EU to finance programmes on EVAW. DPI developed a website as well as video, web and social media products to raise awareness and drive advocacy. We conducted interviews with and supported media outreach for high-level officials, including the EU European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, the Deputy Secretary-General as well as heads of UN Women, UNFPA and UNDP on Spotlight during the 62^nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. 

The Section also continues to support UN Women communications efforts to raise awareness and action around the International Day to End Violence against Women (25 November 2017), cross-promoting advocacy materials across the UN platforms.

All communication messages and products on EVAW were shared across the Department, including with our network of 59 operational United Nations Information Centres who communicate the UN’s work to local audiences in more than 80 local languages.

Gender units invest in targeted SGBV prevention activities that include  prevention against VAW across the Missions through targeted capacity strengthening training, implementing gender analysis to identify enablers of SGBV; invest in community based early warning mechanisms and inclusion of  specific SGBV indicators and reporting benchmarks across all functions to identify timely identification of SGBV risks; and establish partnerships with women civil society organisations to collectively develop strategies for an enabling environment that prevents and mitigates SGBV
  In March 2017 DPKO produces a range of communication materials in line with the new gender policy have been developed to provide coherence and consistent advocacy on SGBV prevention. 


DDR/CVR teams across 5 peacekeeping missions (MONUSCO, MINUSCA, MINUSMA, UNAMID and MINUJUSTH ) missions have designed and implemented a series of Community Violence Reduction (CVR) projects, aimed at preventing and reducing violence at the community level in both ongoing and post-conflict scenarios. While interventions target a wide set of actors (e.g. members of armed groups, youth at-risk and community members), these initiates particularly improve security conditions for vulnerable groups, including women and children. Moreover, by ensuring their participation, CVR projects serve to mobilize and empower women within their communities and, as a result, contribute to the constitution of a protective environment. 


Gender-specific mine action programming: UNMAS makes every effort to ensure that its mine action programming is tailored according to specific cultures and gender of the beneficiaries. In some settings, this means women conducting single-gender risk education sessions (e.g. in Iraq in 2017). 
Recruitment of women in mine action programming: Research in Colombia and Lebanon indicates that women employed in mine action (which is traditionally male -dominated) increase their voice and influence in their communities:  http://www.gmap.ch/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/final-report-ARS-2016.pdf

ESCWA, in partnership with the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at the Lebanese American University and UNFPA, organized a youth arts competition for the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence 2017. The competition received over 75 submissions of artwork from youth in the Arab region and the awards event involved a presentation on engaging with visual arts as a means to respond to gender sensitive legal reform. 

ESCWA, in partnership with UN Women, produced a brochure targeting policy makers on estimating the economic costs of violence against women and a created a series of eight infographics conveying key messages on the impact of violence against women in the Arab region and responses by ESCWA Member States. 

ESCWA facilitates a quarterly gender discussion series, open to all members of the community. The following topics have been addressed: Child marriage in the Arab region; Prioritizing women, peace and security on the Arab agenda; Estimating the cost of violence against women in the Arab region; and the Arab position on gender equality. 

ESCWA, in partnership with UNFPA, screened the film ‘Nour’ (2017) about a fifteen-year-old girl from a Lebanese village who is forced to marry a much older man. In response to the film, audience members remarked that activists, government official and NGOs must strategize how to confront child marriage once it happens, in addition to promoting legal reform.

ESCWA, in partnership with the Asfari Institute on Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut, launched the “Lazim Campaign” during the weeks leading up to International Women’s Day 2018. Through the Lazim Campaign, prominent women throughout the Arab region shared their hopes for change in 2018, including criminalizing violence against women and developing gender-sensitive legislation.

A network of field ethics focal points has been created to receive and escalate complaints related to sexual exploitation and abuse. Trainings have been conducted for focal points on ethics procedures and the handling of these complaints, as well as on Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) and FAO's PSEA procedures.

The ILO-GIP Project aims to reduce poverty and contribute to the empowerment of Myanmar women working in the garment industry by improving labour relations, social dialogue and gender equality. A report containing a gender equality assessment in several garment factories is expected to be released in September 2018.

In line with commitments to the global Call to Action and in accordance with the GBV Guidelines, IOM continues to work to improve GBV prevention and risk mitigation in emergency response operations worldwide. Efforts are geared towards the needs of front-line field staff and, to this end, experts from global support teams in Headquarters deploy experts to provide technical and coordination support to field offices to strengthen GBV prevention. The deployments generate several results, ranging from infrastructural site improvements and establishment of women friendly spaces, to integration of GBV prevention in emergency strategies, creation and dissemination of GBV referral pathways and other information, education and communication materials.

At field level, in South Sudan, IOM is working to strengthen social norms, values and existing capacities that support positive health outcomes, violence prevention and gender quality, and to transform harmful social norms which perpetuate high rates of morbidity and mortality, perpetuate violence against women and girls, and undermine gender quality in the POCs and host communities. In Nigeria, under a joint CCCM, MHPSS and Shelter action plan, IOM carried out awareness raising sessions on GBV targeting IDPs.

Moreover, a second edition of the Site Planning and GBV guidelines has been published, which will be used for training and capacity building purposes, Shelter/NFI Distribution Guidelines completed, and a site planning and GBV video created. IOM also advocates the inclusion of sexual crimes committed against women and girls during conflicts into large-scale victims’ reparations programmes and policies.

One of OCHA’s 7 priority commitments on gender is to promote gender-responsive Humanitarian Programme Cycle processes. It ensures the systematic inclusion of SGBV programming through the mandatory use of the Gender Marker in funded initiatives, and in reports on how gender and SGBV were addressed during project implementation. As an example, the CERF project application and reporting templates require sex- and age disaggregated data. The application template also includes the IASC Gender Marker which is then recorded in the CERF’s Grant Management System Database for tracking and analysis purpose. 

In addition, information and knowledge on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls have been disseminated through OCHA’s various advocacy platforms such as the corporate website, social media accounts, content websites (such as Medium, Exposure and YouTube) and email. OCHA has updated and edited two “OCHA on Message” products on Gender in Humanitarian Action and Sexual and Gender-based Violence. “OCHA on Message” are reference products that enables staff to communicate OCHA’s position on key issues. OCHA has also delivered remarks and statements containing messaging on gender and SGBV for the Commission on the Status of Women, the 2017 Global Humanitarian Policy Forum, the Center for Global Development and the Royal Institute of International Affairs and as well as briefings to the Security Council, among others.. For International Women’s Day, OCHA launched a successful social media campaign with its “Messengers of Humanity” community around their “Female Humanitarian Heroes” highlighting the professional achievements of women working in humanitarian affairs.

In August, OCHA’s annual World Humanitarian Day campaign centered around the hashtag #NotATarget and advocated for the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The campaign included a strong focus on sexual violence in conflicts, and what can be done to empower and support survivors. As part of a unique collaboration with Facebook, OCHA launched a brand-new Live filter, allowing users to step into the shoes of people affected by conflict as they read real stories from civilians trapped in conflict. The filter included a series of stories by women and girls to highlight the unique challenges they experience in crisis. As part of the campaign, SCB collaborated with UNFPA on a blogpost “Dispelling five myths about sexual violence in emergencies” which was published on OCHA’s Medium platform.

OCHA also supports the International Day to end violence against women and the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. In 2017, OCHA launched a digital campaign, which included an updated Facebook Live filter from World Humanitarian Day that exclusively featured stories of survival from women and girls affected by conflict. The Emergency Relief Coordinator and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, as well as staff members from OCHA’s field offices, participated in the campaign by recording videos, where they shared  the real stories of women trapped in conflict.

“The training had a lot of impact on my life because I [now] have knowledge about the misdeeds of excision [cutting] and child marriage. I'm pregnant and if I have a girl I will not make her go through this practice”, said Fatoumata N.*, a peer educator in Mali. She was speaking about  the harmful traditional practice of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), which is inflicted on 89 per cent of women and girls in Mali, according to the World Health Organization. FGM/C has devastating health ramifications for women and girls, including pain, bleeding, permanent disability and even death. This harmful traditional practice is not yet banned in Mali. 


The UN Trust Fund is supporting the Malian organization AMSOPT to change social norms and provide access to medical and psychosocial services for survivors of FGM/C. The project’s awareness-raising efforts in the Kayes region, which has the highest rates of FGM/C in the country, have already led two villages to publicly renounce the harmful traditional practice as well as child marriage, and six others are in the process of doing the same. The two villages held public assemblies bringing together counselors, women, youth and village leaders to agree on the abandonment of FGM/C, and created a committee to ensure the application of the decision


*Name has been changed to protect the privacy of the individual.