Protection, Support and Services for Victims/Survivors

Access to coordinated, survivor-centred services across health, justice, psychosocial, and legal sectors is essential to ensuring that women and girls who experience violence receive the support they need and that perpetrators are held accountable. Spotlight Initiative works to strengthen multi-sectoral response systems and the capacity of frontline institutions to deliver quality, integrated care.

In 2025, over 1.5 million people accessed gender-based violence services across Spotlight Initiative programmes. In Uganda, Spotlight Initiative-supported innovations – including mobile legal clinics, paralegal networks, and community-based case management mechanisms — strengthened survivors’ access to justice and accountability for sexual and gender-based violence. These efforts contributed to convictions in dozens of SGBV cases heard at Special High Court sessions, with over 400 survivors securing restitution and the recovery of property. In Ecuador, police officers were trained under the National Protocol on Urgent Protection Measures, strengthening institutional capacity to issue and enforce protective orders for survivors at risk.

Fragmented service delivery remains one of the most significant barriers to effective response; integrated, well-resourced systems are essential to ensuring survivors receive consistent, rights-based support regardless of where they enter the system.

In 2025, UN Women strengthened survivor-centred responses through expanded access to integrated, multisectoral services, scaling implementation of the Essential Services Package and supporting national systems to improve coordination across health, justice, policing and social sectors.

These efforts reached over 14 million women and girls, including 7.4 million in crisis contexts, and expanded support across 59 countries, strengthening the availability and quality of coordinated services. Innovative delivery models—including one-stop centres, specialized services and digital solutions—enhanced accessibility, particularly in humanitarian and complex settings.

Examples of country level results include: 

• a 51.5% increase in survivors accessing services in Kazakhstan, driven by improved referral pathways and service availability, and
• 10,534 women accessing GBV services in Côte d’Ivoire, illustrating expanded reach in crisis and development contexts.

New global tools further strengthened service delivery, including guidance on survivor-centred counselling and ethical survivor engagement frameworks, supporting improved quality, accountability and inclusiveness of services. Capacity-building initiatives for institutions and frontline providers enhanced consistency and effectiveness of responses across sectors. Investigation protocols were developed in Latin America and the Carribean for gender‑based violence, in collaboration with the gender‑specialized network of public prosecutors, strengthening institutional capacity and coordination within justice systems.

Complementary programming also reinforced safer environments and integrated service delivery, including Safe Cities initiatives implemented in 40+ countries, with new programmes launched in Guatemala, Panama, Zanzibar and India, and engagement of 150+ leaders from 21 countries to advance coordinated action.

Overall, these efforts improved access to justice, protection and support for survivors, strengthened system-wide coordination, and reinforced survivor-centred approaches at scale across diverse contexts.

The Women at the Centre (WAC) program, established by UNFPA in 2023, is the organization's first global initiative dedicated to increasing the availability and accessibility of quality GBV case management services for survivors, particularly those from marginalized communities. WAC aims to institutionalize professional training and continuous development via accreditation pathways for the social service workforce.This enables the delivery of survivor-centered, high-quality, multi-sectoral response services, including psychosocial support, safe spaces, integrated Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), and linkages to child protection systems. Key achievements in 2025 include:

• Establishing or expanding GBV case management and certification pathways in Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe.
• Certifying/accrediting 187 case/social workers in El Salvador and Indonesia.
• Supporting or supervising 81 service points across El Salvador, Indonesia, and Zimbabwe.
• Developing and training instructors on national GBV case management pre-service and in-service curricula.
• Publishing four guidance documents (GD) on ethical and safe GBV communications (GD1, GN2, GD3, GD4)
• Developing policy and guidance materials focused on marginalized survivors (adolescent girls, people with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ people, older women etc.), as well as on SRHR and psychological first aid.
• Establishing referral pathways and supporting helplines, hotlines and safe spaces to increase service accessibility.

UNFPA ASRO led the development and regional endorsement of an updated Arab States Primary Health Care strategy integrating GBV into SRH services, adopted by the League of Arab States Health Ministerial Council resolution number 5. The strategy embeds GBV prevention and response into health systems. In 2026, led by UNFPA ASRO and LAS, the countries will develop action plans to advance the implementation across the region.

UNFPA Algeria has strengthened its health sector response to GBV through the integration of three standardized clinical protocols, covering sexual, physical, and psychological violence, into the national health framework. This ensures that all public health facilities provide a uniform, survivor-centered package of care.

UNFPA Jordan supported the expansion of Women-Friendly Health Centers (WFHCs) to 108 sites, delivering integrated, high-quality SRH and GBV services. Implemented with the Ministry of Health and Health Care Accreditation Council, the programme ensures accessible, rights-based care services to the GBV survivors.

UN Trust Fund-supported initiatives enabled 74,300 women and girls to access specialist support services; supported 581,198 women and girls to access information, goods and services to prevent or respond to violence; strengthened 738 institutions to improve survivor-centred service provision; and facilitated access to justice for 7,960 women and girls in cases of violence. The portfolio also prioritized women and girls facing intersecting forms of discrimination and exclusion. In 2025, funded initiatives directly reached over 39,000 women survivors of violence, 12,727 refugee and internally displaced women and girls, 7,444 women and girls with disabilities, 8,828 Indigenous women and girls, and 2,736 lesbian, bisexual and transgender women and girls, and in 2025 alone nearly 100,000 cases of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls were reported or referred to local state service providers through support provided by the UN Trust Fund grantee partners. Through support from Wellspring Philanthropic, the UN Trust Fund also initiated a series of briefs on practice-based knowledge on essential services for women and girls, highlighting the key role of civil society organizations as service providers across the humanitarian development peace nexus. 

Overall, these efforts improved access to justice, protection and support for survivors, strengthened system-wide coordination, and reinforced survivor-centred approaches at scale across diverse contexts.

Inadequate public investments in essential services and care infrastructure continue to impede women’s ability to fully participate in the economy, access justice and social protection, and live free from violence. With support from UN-Women, over nine and a half million women, across 79 countries, including many survivors of violence and internally - displaced women and refugees, accessed information, goods, resources and/or services. Forty-nine countries have implemented systems, strategies and/or programmes to advance women’s equal access to and use of services, goods and/or resources (including social protection), and 60 countries have strengthened protocols, guidelines and initiatives to prevent and respond to violence against women. Meanwhile, more than 6,600 organizations across 87 countries have enhanced capacities to deliver and/or monitor essential services, goods and resources for women and girls in humanitarian and development settings. Pervasive unequal social norms affect the daily experiences of women everywhere and present a significant obstacle to achieving structural change. With dedicated focus on transforming inequitable gender norms, 15 countries have adopted comprehensive, coordinated strategies for preventing violence against women. 

Specific examples of UN Women’s work include:

UN Women enhanced survivor access to essential services:

• Antigua and Barbuda: Supported the establishment and operationalisation of the first Support and Referral Centre (One-Stop Centre)
• Moldova: Opened its first Centre for Specialist Services for sexual violence survivors.
• Bangladesh: Expanded Victim Support Centres to nine police stations, improving survivor access to justice.
• Jamaica: Supported the establishment of DV zero-rated hotline and Domestic Violence Intervention Centres DVICS).
• St. Lucia: Supported the establishment of a One-Stop Centre in partnership with the Caribbean Development Bank and NGM.
• Ukraine: Partnered with JurFem to provide legal, medical, and psychological support to survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.
• Nigeria: Established a Private Sector GBV Fund, expected to aid 10,000 survivors.

UN Women strengthened the capacity of institutions and service providers:

• Developed the Handbook on Gender-Responsive Policing Services, now used in police training in multiple countries.
• Implemented a gender-responsive policing programme in Trinidad and Tobago, training over 400 police officers and embedding the programme into the Police Academy.
• Led the first-ever Gender-Responsive Policing Summit, setting new standards for policing practices.
• Supported Latin America’s Model Protocol for Investigating Femicide, helping 18 countries criminalize femicide.
• Trained 770 national and local institutions across 49 countries, enhancing survivor-centered service provision.
• UN Women strengthened survivor-centered multisectoral services through supporting use of the Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence in translation, and the ASEAN Regional Guidance on Social Work Services. This includes support for GBV counsellor training packages, national service protocols, and ESP practice-based knowledge reflections.

Access to survivor-centred, rights-based essential services is fundamental to addressing gender-based violence and breaking cycles of harm. Quality services not only provide immediate support to survivors but also reinforce prevention, protection, and justice mechanisms. The Initiative has worked to improve the availability, accessibility, and responsiveness of essential services, ensuring that women and girls–particularly those from marginalized communities–receive the support they need.  

Since its inception, the Initiative helped 5.7 million women and girls gain knowledge of available services in their communities. Close to 3 million women and girls have accessed gender-based violence services, including psychosocial support, emergency shelter, medical care, legal aid, and long-term recovery assistance. Strengthening justice sector responses has also been a key focus, with conviction rates for gender-based violence doubling across 13 countries since 2019, resulting in over 13,000 convictions.  

Improving service delivery requires investment in frontline responders. More than 100,000 government service providers have been trained to deliver high-quality, coordinated essential services. This training has helped integrate response to violence against women and girls across multiple sectors, ensuring that survivors receive comprehensive survivor-centred care.  

• In Mali, outreach efforts led by non-governmental organization (NGO) partners expanded access to services, directly reaching 217,959 individuals across nearly 360 communities. Community engagement was a key drive of success, with 025 community leaders trained to identify and report cases of violence, participate in initiatives promoting gender equality, and advocate against all forms of violence. These efforts strengthened local accountability structures and helped establish community-led response mechanisms to prevent and address gender-based violence.  
• In El Salvador, Spotlight Initiative expanded GBV service provision ensuring access to high-quality services for trans women. The Initiative provided unprecedented, targeted support to transwomen, and the LGBTI community more broadly, by helping to establish a specialized clinic delivering medical and psychological services to the trans population in-country. The clinic was successfully registered in the public health system - institutionalizing services and promoting sustainability - and officially recognised as a transgender health and sexual medicine clinic. This helped improve service provision for transwomen and generate new partnerships to support traditionally underserved communities. 
• In Jamaica, the Initiative complemented ongoing efforts to establish Domestic Violence Intervention Centres (DVICs). Applying a survivor-centred approach, these centres expand access to high-quality recovery services for women and girls, particularly in rural areas, and improved long-term recovery outcomes.  The establishment of DVICs, an ongoing effort of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, helps government agencies improve essential service delivery for GBV survivors, including reproductive and health services, counseling, immediate care, referrals, and access to justice. DVICs offer a safe space for women and girls to seek support without fear of judgment or reprisal. 

UNFPA enforces a survivor-centred approach by investing in partnerships, human capacity, and infrastructure to ensure survivors have access to high-quality case management and multi-sectoral services tailored to their needs. 

UNFPA supports 98 countries in implementing the Essential Services Package (ESP) for women and girls subjected to violence, providing funding, knowledge management, and capacity development. A pilot of ESP’s seventh module, which guides resource estimation for a minimum service package, is currently underway. 

UNFPA’s intersectional approach ensures inclusive service provision, including through initiatives like the WeDecide Programme, which strengthens GBV responses for women and young persons with disabilities. 

In line with the 2023-2025 Strategy and Operational Plan on GBV in Emergencies, UNFPA provided safety from GBV for 5 million crisis-affected people in 2024, with over 1,800 safe spaces offering women and girls emotional and physical refuge. Thanks to its extensive field presence, 1.2 million people in 46 countries accessed GBV-related services in 2024, including prevention, risk mitigation, and response. 

UNFPA works across 150 settings to integrate GBV and SRHR services. The Women at the Centre Programme, launched in Azerbaijan, El Salvador, Indonesia, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe, delivers psychosocial, health, legal, and protection services for women and girls in all their diversity. The programme strengthens case management systems through professionalized training and workforce development, benefiting 177,360 people from 2023-2024. 

In the Arab States, UNFPA enhanced GBV-SRH integration in humanitarian settings through the "Stronger Together" knowledge product, improving service quality in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. 

In EECA, UNFPA developed and rolled out a Multi-Sectoral Response to GBV training package, including a dedicated module on the intersection of disability, gender, and violence. SOPs for health sector GBV response were also established in five Pacific countries (Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, FSM, and Fiji). 

In LAC, a training initiative on ESP standards reached 8,000+ public servants in 12 countries. This process also documented promising practices in intersectional GBV responses, focusing on women with disabilities, Indigenous and Afro-descendant women, girls, and adolescents. 

UN Action has supported over 60 joint catalytic projects across 18 conflict-affected countries focused on providing holistic, comprehensive support to survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, and addressing the root causes of sexual violence. UN Action is currently funded through the Conflict-related Sexual Violence – Multi-Partner Trust Fund (CRSV-MPTF), which was set up in 2020. The CRSV-MPTF has since supported projects in: Somalia, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan DRC, Mali, Ukraine, South Sudan, and Sudan. All UN Action’s projects take a survivor-centred approach and aim to tackle the root causes of CRSV. 

With the support of a psychologist, OHCHR prepared training material on trauma informed interviewing, with a specific focus on survivors of sexual violence, to respond to a growing demand from field colleagues. 

In Egypt, the UNODC established the first secure area for female victims of violence at the East Alexandria Court.  

In the State of Palestine, UNODC supported the HAYA Joint Programme, providing comprehensive care for survivors, including psychological counselling and legal assistance.  

In Kyrgyzstan, UNODC developed a one-stop service centre to improve victim assistance strategies and streamline support services.