United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

UN Women supported the office of the UN Secretary General in drafting three Secretary General’s reports on " Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations", "Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls" and "Trafficking in women and girls”. These reports were presented to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly and have served as a basis for the negotiations of new resolutions on these subjects, which were approved at its 71st Session.

The UN Women Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean, in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), hosted the meeting “Preventing and Responding to Violence Against Women and Girls in Latin-America and the Caribbean: Lessons learned across the globe”, which was held in Panama City from December 5 to 7 of 2016. This event provided a unique space, bringing together several UN agencies, government officials, diplomats, civil society organizations, global researchers and other experts in the field of preventing and responding to violence against women and girls to exchange experiences and explore ways to implement effective and promising practices to address violence against women. This approach sought to drive change in the region, which has been characterized by the lack of evidence-based interventions and rigorous evaluations. A total of 25 countries were represented in this meeting and UN women key guidance documents such as the UN prevention Framework to End Violence against Women and Girls as well as the Essential services guidelines were disseminated.

UN Women, in collaboration with the governments of El Salvador and Sweden, launched the global study "Preventing conflicts, transforming justice, ensuring peace" in the Americas at a high level event in El Salvador in April of 2016. This is a report on the implementation of the Resolution 1325, which highlights the participation of women in security issues. The results of the research strengthen and recognize the power of women's peace-building interventions, and show that women's inclusion improves effectiveness in humanitarian assistance, strengthens efforts to build peace and the economic recovery of countries. As part of the activity, two forum panels took place and provided the space to share experiences on the application of 1325 in various countries of the world.

UN Women has continued working with other UN agencies to finalize a UN global joint programme to build sustained national capacities to implement VAW prevalence surveys in line with international standards and SDG monitoring requirements, as part of UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiative “Better production and use of gender statistics for evidence-based localization of the SDGs”.

In Georgia, UN Women supported the Domestic Violence Council to harmonize legislation with the Istanbul Convention and draft a governmental decree to institutionalize the gender equality mechanism within the executive branch of the government. Planned legislative amendments will enhance the Domestic Violence Law to reflect other forms of violence against women, include protective orders, criminalize stalking and female genital mutilation, and align the concept of rape with international standards.

Supported by UN Women, Georgian Public Defender’s Office developed and institutionalized a monitoring tool to monitor the state shelters for survivors of violence against women on a regular basis.

Under the Women, Peace and Security Program, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between UN Women and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, through the Directorate General for CVAW in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq which has notably influenced Yezidi Religious Leaders to declare acceptance of the women and girls who were assaulted and raped by ISIL elements back to their communities. UN Women, NGO partners, Baghdad Women Association, and Women Empowerment Organization were able to document cases of violence for advocacy purposes with media, government and foreign dignitaries, established Alliance 1325 and pressed for the Emergency Operation Room to elevate support and protection for women and girls in the face of ISIL.  These NGOs, the Alliance, UN Women CSAG along with other CSOs were able to lobby for the emergence of a women machinery heralded in 2017 as Women Empowerment Department in Baghdad replacing the dismantled Ministry of Women.

UN Women continued to work with the Government of Moldova and civil society organization partners to help over 1,000 women access services as survivors of violence. Through the positive deviance approach, an innovative approach to help communities drive asset-based solutions, and UN Women’s coordination role, survivors advocated concrete actions to end violence against women and were involved as key experts on eliminating violence against women in legislative, institutional and community initiatives. The number of women who sought services within the first four months of implementing this approach is a ten-fold increase compared to the scope of previous activities. Central and local public officials, civil society organizations and media were also essential actors in this approach and subsequent result. The world renown academic institutions like Oxford University and others have expressed their interest in further analyzing Moldova’s innovative experience and results and further document it for academic use.  The Executive Program, run jointly by HEC Paris and the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford has invited the Moldova Country Office to present the Innovation in EVAW, and thus, to mainstream the case into their mainstream curriculum already from March, 2017.

UN Women is working with UNDP in the finalization of a policy and programming guidance for prevention of violence against women in elections (VAWE). The guidance aims to fill gaps in current knowledge by providing an overview of the specific forms of VAWE, including scope, types, victims and perpetrators, and the range of actions that can be taken at each phase of the electoral cycle to prevent and mitigate it. The Guide is targeted at the key stakeholders and actors who are positioned to act to prevent and mitigate VAWE, and to international organizations and those providing programming support on electoral assistance, women’s political participation and ending violence against women. It is also targeted at members of political parties, particularly the leadership of those parties, civil society organizations (CSOs), women’s groups and gender equality activists.

In 2016, Serbia continued to make significant improvements in multi-sector coordination and monitoring of violence against women, with substantial support from UN Women. Twenty municipalities in Serbia achieved high levels of multi-sector cooperation in response to cases of violence against women. Professionals from the  Centers for Social Work, health and educational institutions, judiciary and police participated at the case conferences on individual cases of violence and in line with the local level protocols responded to the specific needs of women victims of violence. The women victims of violence benefited from the services and protection measures provided by the local institutions in a timely, complementary and coordinated manner. The Results of the case conferences are captured in reports and published by the Provincial Secretariat for Demography, Social Welfare and Gender Equality (PSEEGE). PSEEGE and UN Women piloted a model for monitoring violence in Vojvodina Province and initiated discussions to implement the model at the national level.