Measures

The Department of Public Information’s UN News Centre covered Security Council action on violence against women, and violence against women in crisis or conflict situations, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cote d'Ivoire. Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstrom was also interviewed for a News Centre feature as part of the “Newsmakers” series. Hide

The Department of Public Information worked to promote the tenth anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security, by producing press materials, including a media backgrounder. Hide

The UN Television of the Department of Public Information covered the issue of violence against women in the following programmes: “Haiti: The Enemy Within”, on the situation of women and girls in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake; “Bosnia: Healing the Wounds of War”, on the legacy of wartime rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina; “Senegal: Beyond Tradition”, on female genital mutilation; and “Jordan: In the Name of Honour”, on the campaign against “honour” killings in Jordan. UN Webcast covered 8 events related to violence against women, including media appearances by Margot Wallström and Michelle Bachelet, and the official observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.A total of 29 official press releases (in English and French) on the issue of violence against women were produced by the Department of Public Information, including coverage of four inter-governmental meetings and four press conferences at UN Headquarters. The Department raised awareness about the issue of violence against women throughout the UN Secretariat via several stories published on iSeek, the Organization’s intranet and deleGATE, the information site aimed at diplomatic missions (www.un.int). Several articles of the Department focused on violence against women, such as: “Who Speaks for the Poor and Why Does it Matter?” and “Adolescent Marriage: Crossroad or Status Quo?” (UN Chronicle magazine), “African women’s long walk to equality” (Africa Renewal magazine). Hide

Human Rights Sections of Peace Keeping Operations continue to implement activities related to sexual gender-based violence. Hide

The Human Rights Section of MINUSTAH in Haiti participated in a workshop organized by the Direction départementale du Ministère à la condition feminine et aux droits de la femme, aimed at sensitizing the local population on sexual gender- based violence. The Human Rights Section together with the UNIFEM and IOM organized training for 20 UNPOL team leaders concerning the protection and response to the widespread occurrence of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) within IDP camps. In light of the increased incidence of sexual and domestic violence, the Human Rights Section in Jacmel, together with the Ministry for Women, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (ONUSIDA), participated in a sensitization workshop at the Pinchinat Camp. The Human Rights Section stressed the importance of victims of sexual violence obtaining a medical certificate and denouncing the authors of these violations, in order to reduce their recurrence through accountability. Hide

The UNECE Gender Statistics Database provides sex-disaggregated data on violence and crime indicators. Hide

A Second Expert Group Meeting on Measuring Violence against Women was organised by UNECE in Geneva (18-19 November 2010) to review the results of the testing of a survey module on violence against women developed by UNECE. The aim of the module is to enable countries to collect a minimum set of information to measure the prevalence of physical, sexual and intimate partner violence. Other regional commissions helped with preparations and participated in the meeting. Hide

ECLAC, in coordination with the other Regional Commissions, has carried out the following activities to implement the interregional project “Enhancing capacities to eradicate violence against women through networking of local knowledge communities”:a) A sub-regional meeting for South America was held in Santiago on 4 and 5 November 2010 to enhance the capacity of eradicating violence against women and collect information on the indicators recommended by the Statistical Commission, attended by representatives of several countries.b) A regional seminar to strengthen the use of administrative records on violence against women in the Caribbean was carried out in Trinidad and Tobago, with the participation of representatives from mechanisms for the advancement of women and producers of administrative data to promote arrangements on the construction of unified national registries.c) Expansion of the knowledge community that uses the protected wiki Confluence platform, especially the National Statistical Offices and National Women(registry available at http://wiki.cepal.org/)d) Construction of a public interregional website that disseminates the knowledge and tools produced by the five Regional Commissions and the Statistical Commission (available at http://www.eclac.cl/mujer/cepal/). Hide

ECLAC continued participation to the regional inter-agency working group responsible for the regional implementation of the Secretary General’s campaign to eliminate all forms of violence against women, through:a) Contribution to the preparations of the Caribbean campaign,launched in Barbados on 11-12 October 2010.b) Contribution to the Inter-agency work programme 2011-2015 in LAC.c) Participation in the annual Inter-agency meeting to be held in Panama on 7-8 February 2011. Hide

Awareness on gender-based violence and livelihoods was raised through a documentary produced by UNAIDS “Empowered over their fields, empowered over their lives, food security response to HIV and gender inequities” (http://vimeo.com/14921424 or http://www.fao.org/emergencies/current-focus/hiv-aids-and-emergencies/en/), a brochure http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/al315e/al315e00.pdf and several articles in FAO Dimitra newsletter and IRIN Media Centre (Kenya: growing self-esteem at farm schools (IRIN)) http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89179). Hide