Responses and Services

In Somalia, UNDP continued to support the project “Access to Justice Project in Somalia” and the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) in Hargeisa, Somaliland, now operates as a ‘one-stop’ location, where victims of GBV can receive medical care and counselling. In Democratic Republic of Congo, the project “Support Community Development for Women Associated with and Affected by Armed Conflicts” supports leadership development and economic empowerment of women associated with or affected by armed conflict.

Women’s empowerment activities started under the project “Action against Human Trafficking from Nigeria to Europe”, submitted by Edo State (Nigeria) NGO Coalition against Human Trafficking (ENCATIP) and NAPTIP (the Nigerian National Agency against Trafficking) and approved by UNICRI.

The World Bank’s Post-Conflict Fund (FCF) provides umbrella funding for a range of activities in Africa, including work on gender-based violence. An example is a US$733,000 grant to administer a "Protection from Gender-Based Violence" programme in Côte d’Ivoire. The project aims to prevent sexual violence against women and provide assistance to victims, and it builds on initial work carried out by the International Rescue Committee.

During 2008, UNFPA’s Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office (LACRO) undertook an initiative aimed at improving access of victims of sexual violence to justice through the design of public policies on sexual violence, and the strengthening of legal protection systems and health services in Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua). The initiative will develop pilot prevention and care models, to be linked to public security, legal, medicine, health and justice institutions.

UNRWA’s legal department in the Syrian Arab Republic provided refugees with access to legal and counselling services to combat gender-based violence.

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, provided support to civil society and women’s organizations for initiatives including community-based Multi-purpose Centres in the Democratic Republic of Congo; HIV/AIDS and violence counselling protocols in Peru.

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, in partnership with various national government, bi-lateral government (donor), non-governmental and United Nations partners, supported legal aid to women survivors in the North of Uganda; training for Rwandan women survivors on handicraft, health and financial skills; the establishment of two referral centres in Afghanistan; efforts addressing post-election rape, including the development of guidelines to prepare women’s court testimonies in Kenya.

In Venezuela, UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, supported gender-responsive budgeting work that resulted in the earmarking of funds for shelters, in selected municipalities.

The UN Trust Fund on EVAW-funded joint programme ‘Multi-Sectoral Gender Based Violence Response at the District Level in Nepal’, the first UN joint programming initiative to address VAW in Nepal, was completed in 2013 and the evaluation concluded that the programme has helped create a forum for different stakeholders to address VAW collectively.

In 38 countries, UN Women contributed to implementation of laws and policies, building capacity and improving coordination to expand access to health, justice, police and shelter services – fundamental responses to hold perpetrators accountable and provide better outcomes for survivors. For example, in the State of Palestine, UN Women contributed to 10 fully functioning Family Protection Units across the West Bank, resulting in a near four-fold increase in the number of women reporting abuse in 2013 over the previous year.