Prevention, Including Awareness-Raising and Advocacy

In 2017, UN Volunteers hosted by UN Women supported communications and public advocacy of gender equality among communities.

In Togo, the UNV-implemented project Voices Against Violence provided interactive, youth-centred ways for people to talk and learn about relationships and gender equity in a safe and inclusive environment. A total of 500 national volunteer teachers were trained in the principles of respectful and non-violent behaviour. They then delivered the programme in their classes and their communities – multiplying the power of the project by spreading the curriculum to thousands of young Togolese.

Partners for Prevention (P4P) was a UNDP, UNFP, UNV and UN Women regional joint programme for the prevention of violence against women and girls in Asia and the Pacific. It focused on the prevention interventions, capacity development and policy advocacy by working on the ground with local volunteers. Volunteers acted as a bridge between the UN, governments and national and regional partners. In 2017, UN Volunteers served as project coordinators with P4P in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Viet Nam.

In Afghanistan, UNV supports the Youth-Mullah Gender Volunteer Caravans, through which young Afghan men and women are crafting campaigns and visiting communities in Herat and Balkh provinces to spread their messages of gender equality.

DRC  
Establishment and strengthening of community mechanisms for the prevention of sexual violence. Support for "Break the Silence" and "HeForShe" campaigns, thousands of people have been reached by awareness messages on the fight against sexual violence, mainly through the involvement of community radio stations. 

SENEGAL 
Senegal benefits from the commitment of communities and state institutions in the fight against gender-based violence. This community dynamic, supported by territorial and administrative authorities and elected officials at local level, strengthens the efforts of sectoral ministries to put an end to violence.

CABO VERDE
 Men’s Alliance has increased on fighting GBV in Cabo Verde thanks to UNW’ support. During White Ribbon Association – Cabo Verde’s second GA, organized in partnership with UNW, a new board and President has been elected the event there was also a renewing of its members and provide a moment of reflection on the future of the Association. The opening ceremony was attended by the President of the Republic of Cabo Verde Mr. Jorge Carlos Fonseca, in his capacity of the national champion of the HeForShe campaign, who emphasized the importance of the men’s role in achieving gender equality in the country and in the world. Other individualities, such as the President of the National Assembly, representatives of political parties, Presidents and representatives of Civil society organizations, the Minister of Family and Social Inclusion, the UN Resident Coordinator, the Attorney General of the Republic, USA Ambassador and media, have attended to the event. Aligned with the HeforShe, the main lines of intervention of the Network are focused on the challenge that strives for everyone not to remain silent about gender-based violence, to assess men attitudes, language and actions, the education of young people, especially young men. UNW supported also the elaboration and presentation of the new 4 Years Strategic Plan of the Laço Branco Cabo Verde.

MALI
UN Women has adopted a systematic strategy to involve men and boys in GBV projects to have both a significant impact on prevention and repression and to encourage men and boys to be allies to support advocacy for the adoption of the draft law against GBV.  A network of young girls operating throughout the territory from North to South, bringing together educated and uneducated young people, is committed to acting as a relay at the community level to inform, raise awareness and encourage their peers to disclose acts of violence but also to refer and accompany survivors to available rescue services. This network has a website with courses on GBV in French and national languages to inform and raise awareness among young people. 
Another notable development around prevention is the review of the Police Code of Conduct. Indeed, GBV is common in the security forces. These acts are characterized by harassment, abuse of authority either on fellow police officers or civilian women. The country programme, in partnership with the national police authorities, has begun the process of revising the police code of conduct to include a GBV prevention and control dimension.

CAMEROON
UWN Cameroon  worked in the humanitarian settings, awareness raising activities in different forms reached a great number of women, men, girls and boys including traditional and religious leaders who maintain significant influence over social norms and behaviours at the community level, on gender-based violence, girls' education, importance of women's economic empowerment, early/forced marriage and other relevant issues. These community outreach activities were not only prevention measures but also served as a first step to inform the population on available GBV services and to encourage them to report cases in the social environment that traditionally silences the survivors of violence. 

LIBERIA
UN Women Liberia continue to conduct series of community engagement including community dialogues, the conduct of the socio-cultural audit consultative session in 6 counties with high prevalence of SGBV cases, and capacity building training for about 83 Women and Children Protection Officers, 65 prosecutors, city solicitors and court officials and 81 health workers.  A total of 905 persons (478 women and 427 Males) have been reached in 2017 with targeted SGBV Messages) 2,700 youths were also reached through awareness raising and sensitization information.

NIGER
In recognition of the high impact activities implemented by UN WOMEN's Niger office in recent years, it enjoys the commitment of communities (men's clubs, multidimensional clubs), institutions such as CENI (National Independent Electoral Commission), social nets, National Assembly, sectoral ministries (Gender, Hygiene and Sanitation) in the fight against gender-based violence. The results achieved by the men's and multidimensional clubs (men, women, religious and local leaders) to raise awareness among more than 10,000 people about GBV, gender, and the promotion of women's rights is a successful community model imitated by several actors

CHAD, BENIN, GUINEA, TOGO
The Community Response 
In Chad, hundreds of community leaders were trained and oriented on their roles and responsibilities in the fight against GBV, maternal and child mortality through the committees to combat maternal, newborn and child morbidity and mortality. Thanks to the commitment of mayors.

"He for Her", Mobilizing Men to Promote Women's Rights
In Benin, Chad, community radios support the activities of men's clubs for training on violence prevention, promotion of the SSRAJ and the rights of girls and women.
In Togo, the "Papas Champions" continue their activities to prevent violence.
In Chad, Guinea, Benin and Togo, 464 women and adolescent girls were taken in charge

Sexual and Reproductive Health for Adolescents and Youth   and the fight against violence in schools and in the informal sector
In Togo and Benin, 568 girls and boys in schools and in the non-formal education system, 200 parents were sensitized. Conferences and debates are organized through the production of teaching materials. Apprentices have also benefitted from this awareness targeting the improvement of their SRH, prevention and management of violence and the prevention of early pregnancies.
A VAWG reporting watchdog committee system has been set up in the Dantokpa market (the largest market in West Africa). They are made of groups of 5 men and women per sector in the market for a more effective fight against violence. At the end of the year, 20 cases of violence, rape, with or without sequestration are denounced by these committees and legally prosecuted

The safety of the girls working in the market, often between the ages of 14 and 24, is ensured  throughout the year at the "House of Hope" (ME), built a Christian Association. 1458 girls are benefitting from it. Among them are sex workers and sexually Active girls in the Marketplace who After a psychological support are also referred to Saint Luc hospital for complete health care. 

In Macedonia, OHCHR organised awareness raising for the public around the CEDAW General Recommendation No. 35 (adopted in 2017)
In Honduras, OHCHR organised several conference and meetings addressing challenges in combatting VAW, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the promotion of the work of women’s networks. It also organised information campaigns on gender based violence and women human rights defenders.
In Haiti, OHCHR funds helped for the development and production of communication tools (audio-visual)/ messages to build resilience and prevent natural disasters for groups and populations at risk with a gender approach.
In Liberia, during the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, OHCHR and the UNCT provided support for the organisation of a conference on “Consolidating National Efforts against FGM’, with the participation of government officials, traditional and community leaders and other stakeholders.

“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.

Building on previous work, UNRWA has developed GBV Roadmaps which are a tool to operationalize its GBV Prevention Framework through concrete activities and accompanying monitoring tools. 

In 2017, UNDP launched the “Ending Gender-based Violence (GBV) and Achieving the SDGs” global project. This project aims to take violence prevention to scale by bringing new partners, strategies and sources of financing to the table. Over three years, it will: design, test and evaluate initiatives that will reduce GBV in select pilot sites; and develop new knowledge, skills and tools to reduce GBV in other contexts. Pilots will integrate GBV into broader UNDP sectoral programming (such as environment and livelihoods) and/or will focus around the principle of leaving no one behind. All pilots will be implemented at the local level, but their lessons will be global. The project will translate evidence from the pilots into policy and advocacy tools, along with instruments such as new financing modalities.

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

Based on the UN framework for the prevention of violence against women, WHO, with UN Women, developed and is finalising an 8-page policy-maker friendly, infographic brochure to package the evidence about risk and protective factors , what works for prevention categorised into 7 prevention strategies., and how to scale up proven interventions This brochure packages simple key messages about the evidence on prevention in a user friendly way.

UN Women has embarked on a number of prevention and awareness raising campaigns and advocacy such as “Take a Stand” initiative.

Internally, within the UN system, UN Women is coordinating closely with other UN agencies on issues related to Prevention of and Reporting on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (by UN personnel)

In addition to this, we have UN Women Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) focal points in all of our six regions whose roles within UN Women are to:

• communicate their role and raise awareness of the ST/SGB/2003/13;
• to ensure that  complaints against the individuals/entities to whom the ST/SGB/2003/13 applies are reported to OIOS;
• to report to the UN Women SEA working group at HQ in order to share any issues, cases or local observations; and gather data for onward reporting;
• to educate the UN Women workforce regarding the prevention of SEA.

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.