United Nations Population Fund
Background
UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled.
UNFPA is working to further gender equality and women’s empowerment and to address the causes and consequences of violence against women and girls, especially the effects on women’s sexual and reproductive health.
Policy framework
UNFPA is guided by and promotes the principles of the groundbreaking Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (1994), which includes the commitment that advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women, and ensuring women’s ability to control their own fertility are cornerstones of population and development-related programmes.
Areas of Focus
It remains a strategic priority for UNFPA to prevent and respond to VAW in both development and humanitarian settings, as well as eliminating harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage. UNFPA works to address VAW in 135 countries, 43 of these countries are affected by conflict and/or natural disaster, and invested in 2015 alone more than $ 93 million in its work to eliminate GBV and harmful practices in development and humanitarian settings in its six programme regions.
UNFPA’s work on GBV:
Advocacy/Policy: UNFPA works with national and international stakeholders on a concerted basis to address the inadequacies of national legislation and law enforcement on GBV and harmful practices and develop culturally sensitive and rights-based policies and plans on GBV prevention and response, with a strong focus on the health sector.
Capacity Development: In its work to prevent GBV and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage, UNFPA partners with a number of key stakeholder groups to address gender discriminatory social norms in society and seek to transform gender roles and promote more equitable relationships between men and women. UNFPA also develops the capacity of governments and civil society actors in GBV response, including service providers. UNFPA has a particularly important role to play in developing the capacity of health care providers in GBV response, with a main emphasis on sexual and reproductive health services.
Knowledge Management: UNFPA partners with national statistics offices and relevant government ministries to bolster national efforts to collect and manage GBV data. UNFPA also supports academic research and evidence gathering on GBV in its programme countries. In humanitarian contexts, the Gender-Based Violence Information Management System (GBVIMS) has been created to harmonize data collection on GBV. GBVIMS is an inter-agency partnership between UNFPA, the International Rescue Committee, UNHCR,UNICEF and WHO, under the auspices of the UNFPA co-lead GBV Area of Responsibility. Implemented in 25 humanitarian contexts, the GBVIMS is a first attempt to systematize management of GBV-related data across the humanitarian community.
Service Delivery: UNFPA is uniquely positioned to promote an integrated approach to the provision of sexual and reproductive health services and GBV prevention, protection and response in both development and humanitarian settings. UNFPA also works with partners to strengthen survivors’ access to quality police and justice services and social services, as well as reinforcing the coordination and governance of VAW services – including through the United Nations Joint Global Programme on Essential Services for Women and Girls Subject to Violence, a partnership between UNFPA, UN Women, WHO, UNDP and UNODC.
Resources
The Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence, UNFPA, UN Women, WHO, UNDP and UNODC, 2015
http://www.unfpa.org/publications/essential-services-package-women-and-girls-subject-violence
Minimum Standards for Prevention and Response to Gender-Based Violence in Emergencies, UNFPA, 2015
http://www.unfpa.org/featured-publication/gbvie-standards
Demographic Perspectives on Female Genital Mutilation, UNFPA, 2015
http://www.unfpa.org/publications/demographic-perspectives-female-genital-mutilation
Girlhood, not Motherhood. Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy, UNFPA, 2015
http://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/Girlhood_not_motherhood_final_web.pdf
UNFPA works largely in implementing prevention programmes that transform gender and social norms, as the root causes of gender-based violence. UNFPA, jointly with UNICEF, led the development of the social norms manual. UNFPA works on comprehensive sexuality education as a GBV prevention strategy in more than 95 countries. In December 2020, under the Spotlight Programme in the Pacific - comprising 11 island states - UNFPA launched the 2020 International Technical and Programmatic Guidance on Out-of-School Comprehensive Sexuality Education, which has created a momentum across the region at the highest possible levels of political and faith-based leadership. In June 2021, UNFPA and the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities organized a webinar with almost 300 attendees, on GBV prevention through CSE and the importance of engaging religious leaders and faith-based organizations.
UNFPA prevention efforts take an inclusive approach by engaging with men and boys and promoting positive masculinities that challenge gender inequality in 107 countries. Similarly, UNFPA implements gender-transformative programmes in 114 regional and country offices across all regions.
UNFPA GBV prevention efforts are guided by the RESPECT framework, co-produced with WHO and UN Women in 2019.
UNFPA, in partnership with other UN agencies and organisations, supports more than 20 countries to implement programmes aimed at eliminating and ending harmful practices.
The Ending Female Genital Mutilation Programme applies a gender-transformative approach to eliminate FGM, through which since 2008 30,182 communities, representing 42.4 million people, have publicly declared the abandonment of the practice, while 35.9 million people have participated in education, sensitization, and social mobilization sessions; and 69.6 million listeners have been reached through radio and TV programmes that promote the elimination of FGM.
The Global Programme to End Child Marriage since 2016 has empowered 7.2 million adolescent girls; provided education support to 500,000 adolescent girls; reached 4.2 million individuals through community dialogue and 31 million through media campaigns; assisted 24,000 facilities to implement adolescent girl-friendly health and protection services; and, enabled 22,000 schools to strengthen adolescent girl-friendly education.
UNFPA is also widely engaged in advocacy efforts and awareness-raising through online and offline activities. UNFPA is partnering with the Center for Women’s Global Leadership to advance the 16 Days Campaign, with a renewed focus on shifting from 16 days of activism to 365 days of accountability. And in advancing the GBV Disruptor initiative and the social media campaign - #IAmAGBVDisruptor.
Following the Generation Equality Forum in 2021, where UNFPA led the Action Coalition on Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, a number of commitments were made to advance bodily autonomy, eliminate harmful practices and end GBV, including to empower women and girls in all of their diversity to make autonomous decisions about their bodies, sexuality and reproduction; and to end child marriage and female genital mutilation by scaling up what works. UNFPA also participates in the Gender-based violence action coalition and it’s committed to strengthen availability of and capacity to use data for ending GBV; to strengthen multi-stakeholder services to support victims and survivors of gender-based violence; and to strengthen prevention of gender-based violence.