Measures

DRC: The DRC is a signatory to several international agreements and texts without restriction. The internal legal framework is improving with the promulgation in July 2016 of the revised Family Code. The challenge remains strict law enforcement. The country is also a signatory to international agreements for peace, notably the Addis Ababa Agreement, the Kampala Agreement, etc.

SENEGAL: Senegal has endorsed the international conventions for the elimination of violence against women, which consider such violence as a violation of human rights.

CABO VERDE: IX CEDAW report elaborated with UNW support

CAMEROON: UNW Cameroon worked to reduce violence against women through creating a legislative and policy environment in line with international standards on EVAW and other forms of discrimination and promoting social norms, attitudes and behaviors at community and individual levels to prevent VAW. A national strategy on Gender Based Violence has been adopted in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender. Moreover, women and girls among refugees, IDPs, and host communities, including Boko Haram survivors know and use the protection mechanisms available to them through Un Women intervention in collaboration of others humanitarian actors
LIBERIA: Except for the 2014 Amendment of the Elections Law of Liberia which calls for the list of candidates from political party or coalition to have no less than 30% of its members/candidates from each gender, there are 3 key laws still before the National Legislature for passage; Domestic Violence Law, Land Rights Law and the CRC. 

Some members of parliament have introduced a bill to amend the 2006 Rape Law to allow bail for perpetrators accused of sexual violence. 

UN Women Liberia supported the National Council of Chiefs and Elders and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to host a 3 days consultative session with over 150 traditional leaders and paramount chief to discuss positive aspect of traditional practices in Liberia. The Forum agreed to conduct an inventory of all grooves or “Traditional bush schools” as well as a list of practitioners in the 10 counties that practice Female Genital Mutilation.

NIGER
Like all other African countries, Niger has ratified international conventions and agreements for the elimination of forms of violence against women. But texts like CEDAW have been ratified with reservations. the taking of appropriate measures to eliminate all customs and practices which constitute discrimination against women, especially in matters of inheritance; the modification of the socio-cultural patterns and patterns of men and women; the right of married women to choose their domicile or residence; the equality of spouses in the choice of surname ;the attribution of the same rights to women as men have in deciding the number and space of births and ultimately the attribution of the same rights and responsibilities to women as men have during marriage and at its dissolution. This is merely a misinterpretation and misunderstanding of the terms of the text.  To this misinterpretation is added the lack of knowledge of these texts by the actors of justice and the litigants themselves; the amalgam between positive law and Muslim law, custom, .... the UN Women Niger office works for a better consideration of women's rights and the fight against GBV.

NIGERIA
Within the period there was no passage of any international bill into law in Nigeria, however, the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition)(VAPP) Bill and this was signed into law by the former president on the 25th of May 2015 is being utilized by lawyers and advocates to facilitate access to justice for women and girls. UN Women engagement with national coalition of stakeholders - Legislative Advocacy Coalition on VAW (LACVAW) has continued to ensure that the advocacy for implementation is amplified. UN Women also continue to partner with the Gender Technical Unit (GTU) to ensure that legislators are effectively lobbied for issues that affect women

DRC
Strengthening of the capacities of several sectoral ministry officials (gender, health, justice, interior, defense) and NGOs in several areas, especially results-based management, protocols for dealing with sexual violence, forensic expertise, etc.

SENEGAL
In Senegal, sector ministry staff benefited from capacity building on GBV. Women leaders, young people through cultural and sports associations and local communities through committees to combat violence.

CABO VERDE
 The continuous support provided in training capacities resulted in an increased capacity of key players, namely the police, the justice sector and the civil society organizations in implementing specific activities and actions in alignment with the recommendations of the conducted evaluation of the law implementation, namely spread awareness activities, assessment of the Rehabilitation Program of Men Offenders of GBV and the integration of GBV data and information in the information system of the operational management of the Ministry of Internal Administration.

MALI
UN Women trained 17 young Slam artists, who in turn reinforced the knowledge of 180 young students, girls and boys, who wrote and proclaimed poetic texts on GBV prevention and prevention during a slam contest in Bamako. A pool of 48 police officers was trained on the prevention and management of GBV survivors. 30 men from the media, the written and spoken press benefited from capacity building to raise awareness for prevention and report GBV cases to raise awareness among the population.

The support of the national police in the fight against GBV has been strengthened through a validated action plan that clearly defines the intervention strategy and results by 2020.

CAMEROON
UNW Cameroon training police officers. The capacity and the level of ownership of police forces as a primary protection actor on violence against women issues has significantly increased in 2017. Ministry of gender  staff working in the call center/GBV mobile Units had also been trained while magistrate of the ministry of justice had also been trained on GBV principles. 

LIBERIA
Liberia: Capacity building for national institutions with training conducted for 83 Women and Children Protection Officers, 65 prosecutors, city solicitors and court officials and 81 health workers.

NIGER 
Representatives of sectoral ministries, state institutions, men and women in the media (even a declaration of commitment for the promotion of women's rights in Niger), local authorities have benefited from capacity building of the UN WOMEN office on GBV, gender and the promotion of women's rights.

Jordan CO

On 16 February 2017, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women considered the sixth periodic report of Jordan on its implementation of the CEDAW provisions. Ahead of the CEDAW Committee session, UN Women presented the UNCT CEDAW shadow report to the Committee developed in 2016. The development of Jordan’s 6th Periodic Report is also the result of the technical support provided by UN Women, in partnership with UNICEF and UNFPA, to JNCW through a dedicated joint programme which allowed extensive national consultations. Following the issuing of the Committee’s concluding observations, the CO continues to engage UN partners, donor and the civil society in the discussion over Jordan’s international commitments, with a particular focus on issues related to patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes. A new pilot programme has been launched in November 2017 funded by the Government of the Netherlands.

2017 was a UPR reporting year for Morocco, UN Women’s support to the coalition focused this year to the civil society advocacy on Member States recommendations and the National Report. In this respect, UN Women supported the Moroccan civil society coalition for the defense of women’s human rights in intergovernmental human rights processes and bodies. The coalition is composed of 32 civil society organizations based throughout the whole national territory and works following a participatory approach and inclusive processes. UN Women has supported three consultations related to the UPR process were convened with the civil society: (i) the first one between four representatives of the coalition and four UN Women staff on the coalition advocacy strategy, (ii) the second one with the UN system through the Gender thematic group to which 13 UN staff and 6 members of the coalition participated, (iii) the third one with bilateral and multilateral cooperation agencies with the European Union Delegation, with about 30 representatives of cooperation agencies.

UN Women internal policies:

UN Women has policies which are available to its personnel. They receive these through their welcome letter the moment they join the organization, available links on our intranet pages, and in house non/mandatory courses and information sessions.

Here are the policies:

• The UN-Women Legal Framework for Addressing Non-Compliance with UN Standards of Conduct defines misconduct and the mechanisms within UN-Women for reporting and investigating it. The investigations function for UN-Women is assumed by the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which has the mandate to investigate all reports of alleged misconduct involving staff members and allegations of fraud and corruption, whether committed by staff members or outside parties.
• TheUN-Women Policy on Protection Against Retaliationestablishes "whistleblower protection."
• The UN Women Policy on Workplace Harassment and Abuse of Authority is a helpful document in providing definitions, measures of prevention, and steps to resolving improper conduct.

Lebanon PP

In 2017,  3 induction/capacity building sessions on GBV tools for around 12 youth-led NGOs active in different areas in Lebanon was organized. The main focus of the induction is Gender Roles & Societal Expectations from both Women and Men in Public and Private Spheres.  Furthermore,  to support the role of youth-led and women-led organizations,  UN Women  organized in partnership with ABAAD a GBV/Masculinity  TOT training workshop in October  2017 which involved 9 CSOs.  The 3  days’ workshop aimed  at  building the capacities of  participating NGOs  on  the concepts of human security,  gender based violence and masculinities and  addressing negative coping mechanism.  The CSOs were able to  utilize their newly acquired knowledge and technical skills while conducting GBV awareness raising sessions within their community to address stigma against GBV survivors and reduce all forms of violence.  

The UN Women Gender Specialist secondee to OCHA has been working closely with national and sub-national cluster coordinators, gender focal points and humanitarian funding partners to improve gender outcomes, including conducting training on Gender and Age Marker for 90 participants.

In Algeria, UN Women has reached an important milestone, in strenghtening the Ministry of National Solidarity, Family and Women Condition's (MSNFCF) capacities to collect data on women and girls victims of violence. A modernized and common data collection framework integrating international guidelines and indicators on WSV, with a focus on SDG 5, was developed by UN Women in partnership with the MSNFCF. The new administrative databased named "AMANE" will allow the MSNFCF and its different structures to collect comprehensive data on Survivors seeking aid from its services. All 54 professionals from the Directorates for Social Action and Solidarity (DASS) and from Women Shelter's have benefited from a specific training on how to use AMANE with a component on gender-based violence and gender issues.

As part of UN Women efforts in supporting the Palestinian police to improve the Family Protection and Juvenile Unit (FPJU) performance in dealing with VAW cases, and supporting the implementation of the capacity building plan of the FJPU, a two-day workshop has been conducted in Jan 2018 on cybercrimes against women and girls.  24 police officers from FJPU and the cybercrime unit have been targeted and agreed on recommendations to improve coordination between both units whe dealing with VAW cases.  following that, UNW facilitated a meeting  between heads of the specialized units of the cyber-crime and VAW, to reflect on the workshops main points  and present the findings and recommendations. Both units agreed to discuss internally proposed arrangements,  including the assginment of the  FJPU as the first responder for the cyber-crime -violence against women and  the aspects of coordination mechanisms between the units when dealing with VAW casesto ensure privacy and confidentiality. 

All new personnel receive a welcome letter to alert them that they need to complete all mandatory courses within 90 days of starting and these include three online courses related to ethics:

In addition to mandatory courses, there are non-mandatory quarterly workshops internally on Ethics and the Workplace provided both to HQ and field-based staff, both in person and online.

DRC 
Support granted to the government for the elaboration of the National Strategic Development Plan 2017-2021. United Nations agencies are engaged in the process of developing UNDAF 2019-2022.

SENEGAL
 UN Women through the Ministry of Women, Family and Gender supports the Government of Senegal to reduce gender-based violence and to care for GBV victims for social reintegration, through the implementation of a multisectoral approach to violence prevention.

CABO VERDE
 Strengthened capacities of civil society organization and men alliances for the implementation of the GBV Law and gender equality initiatives was another important component of UNW support to contribute to better an approach in fighting GBV. Cabo Verde has been witnessing the increasing of men’s engagement on fighting gender-based violence, by promoting a positive masculinity. White Ribbon Association – Cabo Verde has been the leader in promoting gender equality through positive masculinity focus on fighting to end violence against women and girls in Cabo Verde many of their members are part of the Government Rehabilitation Program for Men Offenders of GBV (created in 2012 with UN Women’s support). In the same line, UNW has also provided technical and financial support to the assessment of the implementation status of the programme, contributing to the systematization of lessons learned and good practices of the programme, and to the formulation of concrete recommendations for the elaboration of the next phase of the programme.  

CAMEROON
Unwomen Cameroon work alongside with the ministry of gender and more than 300 stakeholders  in different worshop to developed and adopte the GBV national Strategy, and the National plan on FGM). And the ministry of justice to train magistrate  and to look into gender aspect in the new penal code previously adopted.

LIBERIA
UN Women Liberia is supporting the Ministry of Gender, Children & Social Protection in the development of a revised National Plan of Action for the Prevention and Management of Gender Based Violence. The initial plan covered the period 2006 – 2011 Gender Based Violence National Action Plan.
The Revised National Gender Policy is undergoing some minor review for adoption.

NIGER
With the support of the Ministry for the Advancement of Women and Child Protection UN Women, the UN office implements activities within the framework of the National gender policy, the national strategy to combat GBV, for the promotion of women's rights, gender equality and better management of GBV survivors.

DRC
Strengthening of community prevention mechanisms with vigilance committees; sensitization of the military and police on their role in civil protection. Action to repress the perpetrators of sexual violence with emblematic trials of certain senior military officers. Actions carried out by the office of the Personal Representative of the Head of State in charge of combating sexual violence with the support of partners, in particular UN Women and UNFPA.

CAMEROON
UNW CAMEROON sept up women cohesion space to provide holistance assistance to GBV survivors. In humanitarian settings, awareness raising activities in different forms reached a great number of women, men, girls and boys including traditional and religious leaders who maintain significant influence over social norms and behaviours at the community level, on gender-based violence, girls' education, importance of women's economic empowerment, early/forced marriage and other relevant issues. These community outreach activities were not only prevention measures but also served as a first step to inform the population on available GBV services and to encourage them to report cases in the social environment that traditionally silences the survivors of violence. 

LIBERIA
Liberia is not in a conflict situation at the moment. However, measures are available as part of disaster response strategy. 

NIGER
The Diffa region is prey to the interventions of the boko Haram nebula. To support displaced, returned and refugee women, high-impact activities were implemented, including three hundred and fifty income-generating activities in the camps, the provision of more than 1,000 domestic gas kits to enable women not to leave the camps to search for firewood, Equipping health centres in three camps to care for survivors of violence, the three cohesion spaces, gender training for the FDS, GBV and gender mainstreaming in security activities, and the five gender units within the law enforcement services. All these activities benefited more than 5,000 people.

NIGERIA
UN Women supported the state ministries of women affairs and social development in the focus states to commemorate the 16 days of activism on violence against women;
The National Advisory Committee on the implementation of the National Action Plan was inaugurated by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development with support from Un Women and the State Action Plans on UNSCR 1325 was launched n Adamawa Gombe and Plateau state in the period 
The HeforShe campaign was launched in three state and male traditional and community leaders were recognized for integrating women in traditional councils and local community leadership committees.
A simplified NAP has been developed to facilitate uptake by the public and the costing for the implementation is underway 
Plateau Peacebuilding Agency’s Strategic Plan has been drafted with support from UN Women and state partners  

Iraq CO

UN Women, in collarboration with UNDP, provided 935 survivors of gender based violence and conflict related sexual violence with psychosocial support, legal assistance, and referrals as part of the Stop Rape Now United Nations Against Sexual Violence and Conflict fund. Many of these women were survivors of violence perpetrated by ISIS, and were able to register their cases with the Genocide Committee based in Dohuk, Iraq, contributing to documentaion of ISIS's crimes and providing them with access to justice. In the context of Security Council resolution (SCR) 2106 (2013), the UN agreed with the Government of Iraq a joint , (the “Joint Communiqué”) as a framework of cooperation to prevent and address conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV)  committed in the country on 23 September 2016. During 2017 and 2018, UN Women has been actively engaged in developing the Action Plan for implementation of the Communique and the Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Arrangements (MARA) Mechanism, contributing to the systematic gathering of timely, accurate, reliable and objective information on CRSV against women, men, girls and boys in Iraq. UN Women also supported development of and participated in the SRSG on CRSV visit to Iraq in March 2018, reinforcing its work to combat GBV and support government response for survivors. 

Under the UN Action- funded project, UN Women provided technical guidance to JNCW and its partner, NAMA Strategic Intelligence Solutions (contracted by NATO), as they conducted a Gender Audit of the Police, Civil Defense and Gendarmerie. The audit seeks to identify gaps and recommendations for securing the meaningful participation and leadership of women in all parts of the security sector. The audit’s findings will also support the identification of gaps that must be addressed within the security sector as it increases its capacity to respond to incidents of CRSV.The prime minister and cabinet endorsed the JONAP 1325 on 3 December 2017. Throughout the year, the JONAP 1325 benefitted from substantial engagement across all sectors, including consultations with civil society in the different governorates throughout Jordan. The final JONAP includes the following CRSV specific outputs: 3.3.2: “Instruments to monitor, document and report GBV and CRSV are created – linked to national structures and systems,” and 3.3.3: “Prosecutors, judges and the security sector are trained on how to handle GBV and CRSV, and promote access to safe reporting channels”

During the reporting period , UN Women lebanon succeeded to push forward  progress on WPS  through its leading role to develop the NAP 1325 for Lebanon.  Substantive progress was achieved in terms of : a)  conducting training sessions to the members of the national Council for Lebanese Women,   Meetings with more than  17 focus groups representing Syrian,  Palestinian and Iraqi refugees,  in addition to  meetings with religious leaders.  The aim of the meetings is to enhance their knowledge on the UNRC 1325 themes and also collect information oin the challenges they are facing and their concerns.  All these will feed in the formulation of UNCR 1325 NP for Lebanon. Furthermore,  UN Women as leading UN agency, finalized the situation Analysis,  held more than 5 meetings with other UN agencies and 3 meetings with  the national counterpart.  WPS addresses the 4 pillars which includes Prevention, Protection and Recovery  for women within conflects.

UN Women has embarked on a number of prevention and awareness raising campaigns and advocacy such as “Take a Stand” initiative.

Internally, within the UN system, UN Women is coordinating closely with other UN agencies on issues related to Prevention of and Reporting on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (by UN personnel)

In addition to this, we have UN Women Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) focal points in all of our six regions whose roles within UN Women are to:

• communicate their role and raise awareness of the ST/SGB/2003/13;
• to ensure that  complaints against the individuals/entities to whom the ST/SGB/2003/13 applies are reported to OIOS;
• to report to the UN Women SEA working group at HQ in order to share any issues, cases or local observations; and gather data for onward reporting;
• to educate the UN Women workforce regarding the prevention of SEA.