United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

UNIFEM’s, now part of UN Women, support in the formulation, reform and implementation of legislation to address violence against women and girls, in partnership with a wide range of stakeholders, included: domestic violence laws and bills in Indonesia and Thailand; a workshop for ASEAN Member States to review domestic violence legislation and best practices (October 2008); a regional workshop on coordinated community responses to domestic violence with local government representatives and civil society organizations (CSOs) (including UN Trust Fund grantees) from Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (October 2008); and a workshop on female genital mutilation/ cutting with Christian and Muslim leaders from West Africa (November 2008). Hide

In Burundi, UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, , UNDP, UNESCO and UNICEF worked together to provide training and reporting assistance for civil society organizations and police to improve statistics and data collection on cases of gender-based violence. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, and DFID supported a conference organized by the Rwandan Defense Forces in Kigali in March 2008 on women’s participation in peacekeeping missions, as part of prevention of gender-based violence. In collaboration with UNFPA and UNDP, UNIFEM organized a satellite session “From acknowledgement to action: Intersections between violence against women and HIV/AIDS”, at the International Conference on AIDS in Mexico City, in August 2008.UNIFEM leads or partners on several joint United Nations initiatives on violence against women, including programmes in Bangladesh, Colombia and Morocco; the Asia Pacific Regional Joint Programme Partners for Prevention: Working with Boys and Men to Prevent Gender-based Violence; and the One UN pilots in Albania, Rwanda and Uruguay, which include violence against women in their programming. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, provided capacity development to the Burundian police and judiciary to improve protection mechanisms for survivors of violence against women and to civil society partners, working on violence against women in Indonesia, Thailand, Timor-Leste and the Philippines. It also supported the development of a training course, "Empowerment, HIV and violence against women in the Caribbean." As part of the Safe Cities Programme, UNIFEM and Red Mujer y Habitat supported an online learning course, “Urban violence, insecurity and discrimination”. Hide

DAW, now part of UN Women, prepared reports of the Secretary-General to the sixty-third session of the General Assembly on intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women (A/63/214), trafficking in women and girls (A/63/215), and eliminating rape and other forms of sexual violence in all their manifestations, including in conflict and related situations (A/63/216). Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, collaborated with several agencies to support “Women on the Frontline”, a seven-part series of the BBC aired in April 2008 that profiled forms of violence against women around the globe. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, facilitated the Wilton Park conference of May 2008 on the role of military peacekeepers in addressing sexual violence during armed conflict, and contributed to the dissemination of the results. Hide

DAW, now part of UN Women, completed the first issue of Words to Action, a quarterly newsletter designed to disseminate information about measures undertaken to address violence against women by: intergovernmental bodies of the United Nations; expert bodies, including the human rights treaty bodies; entities of the United Nations system; and States at the regional or sub-regional level.DAW, now part of UN Women, produced a brochure on the database on violence against women and the related questionnaire, which was distributed to Member States during the sixty-third session of the General Assembly and is available online. DAW participated in the closing conference of the Council of Europe Campaign to Combat Violence against Women, including Domestic Violence, in Strasbourg, France, in June, and in the 13th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma in California, United States of America, in September 2008. Hide

In May 2008, UN-INSTRAW, now part of UN Women, undertook an assessment of gender-based violence in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Noel in the Dominican Republic. The study revealed that there was very little attention to, or provision in post-disaster reconstruction efforts to address gender-based violence, particularly among residents of temporary shelters. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, provided legislative reform support to the Alliance on the elimination of violence against women in Pakistan; and support to the Regional Rights Training Team and UNDP in advocating for the passage of sexual and gender-based violence bills in Fiji and Vanuatu. Hide