Measures

Social Norms and Community-based Care Programming in Humanitarian Settings: Building ‘Good Practice’ Approaches for Response to and Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence against Women and Girls Affected by Conflict is a three-year project by UNICEF, underway in Somalia and South Sudan. It focuses on building community-level prevention and response strategies to promote behaviour change towards greater respect for women and girls, and to prevent sexual violence as an inevitable and acceptable part of war. A key component of the project is rigorous research, conducted in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, which will document the impact of the programme. Hide

UNICEF published a data-driven report ‘Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Statistical Overview and Exploration of the Dynamics of Change’, the most comprehensive and up-to-date publication on trends in FGM/C practice in the 29 countries where the practice is concentrated. The publication also includes, for the first time, estimates of data for daughters aged 0-15. Hide

Progress has been made in recent years in relation to the widespread grassroots abandonment of the practice of FGM/C. Several individuals have been gradually been arrested and convicted in 2013, while since the inception of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme and Trust Fund on Female Genital Mutilation in 2008, more than 10,000 communities in 15 countries, representing more than 8 million people have denounced the practice. UNFPA and UNICEF published the 2012 annual report and concluded phase one of their Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in 15 countries of Africa and the Middle East and conducted a joint final evaluation of the five years of work. UNFPA and UNICEF organized an international conference in Rome in October 2013, attended by over 30 governments, UN agencies and civil society to consolidate lessons learned from phase one and build political and technical consensus for phase two. Phase two will run from 2014-2017 and will cover 17 countries in Africa and the Middle East and will pursue a holistic approach in line with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 67/146. UNHCR carried out activities to raise awareness on VAW, including on FGM in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. Hide

UNICEF is leading in the development of tools for violence against women and girls in emergencies, including the revision of the IASC GBV Guidelines and the GBV Coordination Handbook. In 2014-2015, UNICEF will roll out the Guidelines and promote adherence at headquarters, regional and country levels, within UNICEF programmes and by partners. Hide

On 31 July 2013, UNICEF launched the global ‘End Violence against Children’ which aims to leverage efforts already underway by a growing number of organizations worldwide to protect children, and urges people everywhere to recognize violence against children, join global, national or local movements to end violence, and encourage action where none is taking place. The initiative serves as a platform for catalysing social change and also for strengthening national protective systems. Hide

UNFPA collaborated with UNFPA, ILO, UNICEF, UN-Women and the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children on a joint study on violence against indigenous girls, adolescents and young women, entitled “Breaking the Silence on Violence against Indigenous Girls, Adolescents and Young Women: A call to action based on an overview of existing evidence from Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America”. Hide

UNFPA continued to document evidence-based practices to EVAW, including through the development of advocacy briefs such as “Addressing Gender-Based Violence” and “The Role of Data in Addressing Violence against Women and Girls” during the 2013 Commission for the Status of Women. Moreover, UNFPA and the Men Engage Alliance published global advocacy briefs on the role of men and boys in addressing GBV in conflict and on social norms, respectively. In the area of pre-natal sex selection, UNFPA supported the International Center for Research on Women to produce the research study on “Masculinity, Son Preference and Intimate Partner Violence in India” as well as the Research Institute for Development to produce a study entitled “Sex Imbalances at Birth in Armenia: Demographic Evidence and Analysis “on sex-at-birth (SRB) imbalances in Armenia. Hide

UNFPA responded to crises under the GBV cluster coordination mechanism focusing on GBV and health needs of women and girls, including essential medical supplies for post-rape care. The countries include Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Georgia, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria and Uganda. UNFPA also took the lead in ensuring that women and girls have full access to GBV and reproductive health services in the aftermath of the Philippines typhoon and in the Syrian refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan. Hide

UNFPA convened an expert group on men and boys, masculinities and sexual and reproductive health issues in New York, in September, to better inform its work and 2014-2017 Strategic Plan. Hide

In 2013, UNFPA held a multi-stakeholder workshop in St Lucia on sexual violence in the region as well as gaps and challenges in terms of implementation and hosted a capacity development workshop on pre-natal sex selection for various stakeholders from the regions of Asia-Pacific as well as Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, in New Delhi, India, in November 2013. The workshop examined the sex ratio imbalances, their context and factors at birth as well as their consequences and considered communication strategies and policy options. Hide