Protection, Support and Services for Victims/Survivors

UNHCR launched a policy on Access to Justice for Survivors of SGBV, in 2012, aimed at strengthening provision of legal services for survivors. The policy included conducting advocacy and awareness-raising with high-level and local authorities, and capacity-building activities in both formal and informal justice fora. Hide

An ILO programme, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), on Economic Empowerment and HIV Vulnerability Reduction along Transport Corridors in Southern Africa, reported that acceptance attitudes towards violence, through project interventions, such as education on gender equality, had significantly decreased. The project has a strong component on violence against women and focuses on building women’s economic resilience, business skills and related capacities. Hide

UNDP is also working to develop the capacity of service providers, including: integration of specialized and clear rules of conduct in cases of VAW into the General Protocol of Cooperation of relevant institutions, together with the Government in Serbia; technical assistance to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Cambodia to pilot the recommendations identified in the One-Stop Service Centre (OSSC) feasibility study; and technical assistance to the Papua New Guinea Family Sexual Violence Action Committee to integrate GBV into the national training curriculum for civil servants in 2012. Hide

UNDP is working to strengthen access to justice, including: in Guinea through training of magistrates and auxiliaries, CSOs and CBOs to establish credibility, professionalism, independence and efficiency of the justice system; in the Dominican Republic,through capacity development of the Justice System on monitoring and integration of citizen safety and security and through the inclusion of gender and GBV in the observatories under the auspices of the Nation’s Attorney General; in Sierra Leone through support to CSOs operating nationwide providing shelter, legal and prosecution assistance; in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than 4,500 women have been reached in North and South Kivu through multipurpose community centres offering legal assistance and support for sustainable economic and social reintegration into their community; in Afghanistan providing access to legal support through the Help Centres located in each province reaching 3,000 victims of domestic violence; and in Nepal and Pakistan through legal aid clinics. Hide

The World Bank through its Health Sector Support and Multi-Sectorial Aids Project in Burkina Faso has proposed additional financing to support the training of professionals from the mass media, such as journalists from the main daily and weekly journals, national and local radios and television on HIV infection and prevention, including on issues of gender violence. The additional funding will also support women’s organizations at all levels to strengthen their capacity to programme and implement activities focused on HIV prevention, negotiation capacity in sexual relationships and sexual violence including the problems related to female mutilation. In Solomon Islands and Kiribati, the Bank is supporting increased access to various servicices for women survivors of domestic violence and in Bangladesh and the Democratic Republic of Congo, support to strengthening of the health systems. Hide

In Bolivia, with the sponsorship of UN Women, the Centre for Integral Development of Aymara Women (CDIMA) worked with local authorities from the municipalities of Mocomoco, Comanche and Simanco. Following this collaboration, the authorities signed agreements to ensure indigenous women´s access to justice in particular in cases of gender based violence. In the process of improving women´s access to justice, CDIMA has strengthened the coordination between ordinary jurisdiction and indigenous justice systems. Hide

UN Women manages the project Pacific Regional Facility Fund in Support of Organisations and Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women (EVAW), which is a regional ‘basket fund’ to support a small grants facility for Pacific Island organisations and actions to eliminate VAW. Hide

The UN Women Universal Access to Critical Services initiative aims to achieve access for all women and girls who have experienced gender-based violence to at least a core set of services for their emergency and immediate needs, within the next ten years, in a significant number of countries of the world. It addresses a clear implementation and accountability gap in the dearth of State mapping, benchmarking and monitoring for expansion of services for universal access, and promotes an evidence-based, results-driven approach to policy making similar to that of the Millenium Development Goals. Hide

UN Women provided support to survivor assistance networks and counseling/crisis centers in Algeria (the CIDDEF and BALSAM network), Morocco (the ANARUZ network), and Mauritania (El Wafa crisis center, AMSME), which enabled women survivors of violence (about 830 in Algeria, 1700 in Morocco, and 150 victims of sexual violence in Mauritania) to access psychological and legal advice and support. In Algeria, four new counseling centers joined the BALSAM network, which is now composed of 15 counseling centers. This enlargement enabled the BALSAM network to cover other regions and provide services to women survivors of violence in rural areas. Technical assistance to a leading non-government organization in the area of economic empowerment of women survivors of violence in Morocco resulted in the development of tools necessary to the establishment of a fund to support income generating activities for women victims of Economic Violence Based on Gender. Hide

UN Women provided women inmates in Palestinian correction and rehabilitation centres (Palestinian prisons) with legal aid and representation from a gender perspective, social counseling sessions, recreational and rehabilitative activities; and provision of goods for primary needs for the women and their newborn children leaving inside the prison. Regular monitoring of the situation (social and legal) of women inmates in the occupied Palestinian territory was conducted and a paper was produced. UN Women has also provided financial support to the existing toll-free help in the occupied Palestinian territory for women and children victims of violence. Hide