Measures

UN-HABITAT is implementing, in partnership with the NGO “Jagori”, a project on Youth and Girls Safety, in one of the settlement communities in New Delhi. Project activities include: the sensitisation of young girls and boys to prevent and end violence against women and girls; and the re-examination of masculinities and gender identities by young men. The Core Strategies deployed are:- mapping and training of a team on Safety Audit methodology;- critical sensitization of a broad range of key stakeholders, to ensure their collaboration with the youth in the development and creation of a gender-equitable safe environment;- developing competencies of the youth to demonstrate leadership and ownership in the community.UN- HABITAT and UNESCAP have been jointly implementing the project “promoting urban safety for the poor in the Asia Pacific” and the final workshop ' Putting Safety First for the Urban Poor on the Local Agenda" was held in the Philippines, in June 2010. One of the concerns raised was women’s safety in the region and in the on-line Safer Cities toolkit for Asia and the Pacific women’s safety features prominently.UN-HABITAT is conducting safety assessments of 13 municipalities in Southern Serbia. Hide

The Department of Public Information continued to provide communications support to the Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, including through managing the campaign website (endviolence.un.org) and related online platforms. Several social media platforms managed by the Department, including the UN Twitter account – which had approached 100,000 followers – regularly featured content on violence against women. News and developments in the global campaign to end violence against women were also covered by the UN News Centres in all the official languages. In English and French alone, 55 stories on the subject were produced, covering issues including violence against women in times of conflict and activities of United Nations experts and intergovernmental bodies. The Department produced a total of 17 official press releases related to the issue in English and French as part of coverage of six intergovernmental meetings, and another six press conferences at United Nations Headquarters. Hide

DPI promoted the 45th session of the Commission on the Status of Women/15-year review of the Beijing Platform and International Women’s Day 2010, including the issue of violence against women. The Department conducted media outreach and produced information materials, including a poster and information kits for media, delegates and civil society. The Department facilitated a four-week online discussion on “Women and the Media”, one week of which focused on violence against women journalists. In all regions the Department’s network of UN Information Centres organized numerous activities and events to mark International Women’s Day, several of which focused on violence against women. The United Nations Information Office in Baku held a series of town hall meetings in remote villages and districts in Azerbaijan, which also included a session on early marriage and gender-based violence. In Sri Lanka, a one-day interactive forum on the theme "Discrimination against women: Our side of the story", organized by the United Nations Information Centre in Colombo, with the support of Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, generated recommendations for institutional measures to tackle gender discrimination and gender-based violence. The United Nations Information Centre in Yaounde organized a group discussion on violence against women journalists with media professionals in Cameroon.Two articles on gender-based violence were published in DPI’s quarterly Africa Renewal magazine: “Security reform key to protecting women” (January 2010), and “Even with peace Liberian women struggle” (April 2010). The Department’s UN Television produced programmes on the subject, including short features under the UN in Action series on women in prison in Afghanistan; women on the frontline in Liberia; and a programme entitled “Haiti: Violence Against Women.” In addition, UN Television produced two long-form reports for its half-hour magazine programme “21st Century”, aired by broadcasters in different regions of the world. These covered women in Liberia and the violence faced by female journalists in Iraq. Seven footage packages were prepared for broadcasting partners, through UN Television’s UNifeed team, which addressed violence against women, and presented United Nations activities to prevent it.In partnership with UNFPA and UNIFEM, DPI produced and broadcasted a series of radio programmes called “Beijing + 15” which explored the impact of the commitments made at the Beijing Women’s Conference on the lives of girls today. UN Radio staff travelled to Africa, Europe and Latin America to tell the stories of 15-year-old girls, and hear about their problems, including on the subject of violence. The series were adapted from English into Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish, Kiswahili and Portuguese, and were broadcasted by many UN Radio partners including, for example, Moldova National Radio. Hide

The United Nations Integrated Peace Building Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL), with the larger UN community, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs engaged women’s groups, through an interactive session during the Global Open Day consultations on issues of women’s peace and security. The women spoke about concerns related to violence against women and girls. The UN Family continues to work jointly in strengthening capacity of respective gender focal points in responding to issues relating to violence against women through training workshops. Hide

In DRC, the MONUSCO Sexual Violence Unit (Office of the DSRSG-Ro) created an inter-section forum on data collection and sharing with the aim to find a solution with respect to the collection of reliable data on sexual violence. Led by the UN Joint Human Rights Office, a common MONUSCO database was developed, in order to provide more accurate data on sexual violence cases, collected by the Mission’s Military and Civilian Sections. Another project, aimed at increasing and better managing available information on perpetrators of serious human rights violations, is the Profiling Exercise of MONUSCO Human Rights Division, jointly carried out by MONUSCO, UNDP and OHCHR. The project focuses on members of the Congolese security services, especially those in the upper echelons or ranks, with a special focus on their human rights records. The Profiling Team has created a database which will link commanders to serious human rights violations (including sexual violence but not exclusively), clarify current and former command structures of security services and armed groups and serve as the basis for creating detailed profiles of such individuals. This database is still being developed and data is being entered. The database will be fully operational in February 2011. OHCHR is carrying out a mapping of major violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including sexual violence, committed in the DRC from 1993 to 2003. OHCHR’s Mapping Report will be released on 1 October with the objective to enable the Government of the DRC to identify appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations. Hide

The ECLAC Gender Observatory of Gender Equality of Latin America and the Carribean recollected and analysed national legislation on violence against women. Hide

ECLAC has pursued the coordination and execution of the interregional project “Enhancing capacities to eradicate violence against women through networking of local knowledge communities”, in coordination with the other Regional Commissions. Activities that are being carried out are the following: a) five national studies on the prevalence, nature, causes, consequences and repercussions of violence against women, as well as the measures taken by the main stakeholders (Argentine, Guatemala, Paraguay, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago); b) three subregional workshops to enhance the capacity of eradicating violence against women and collect information on the indicators recommended by the Statistical Commission in the Caribbean, South American and Central American countries.; c) establishment of a Confluence wiki-platform to integrate various regional communities of knowledge. Hide

ECLAC continued to participate in the regional inter-agency working group, responsible for the regional implementation of the Secretary General’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign. ECLAC contributed to the preparations of the Caribbean launching of the campaig Hide

The World Bank’s first global study of urban violence, “Violence in the City” (2010), included analysis of gender based violence (GBV) in urban neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Dili, Timor-Leste; Nairobi, Kenya; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Fortaleza, Brazil. The study reported lifetime sexual violence victimization ranging from 08.% to over 20% in some neighborhoods, with over half of all incidents occurring in public spaces. Hide

Issues # 5 and 6 of Words to Action, DAW’s (now part of UN Women) quarterly newsletter on violence against women, was produced with feature articles on sexual violence in conflict settings, and the vital role of CEDAW in eliminating violence against women. Hide