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In August 2014, OHCHR and UN Women launched the Latin American Protocol for the investigation of Gender-Motivated Killings of women, which provides guidance for investigations to comply with due diligence standards (promoted in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, and Peru).
In Viet Nam in 2016, UN Women supports Legal Aid Department of Ministry of Justice to build a legal aid system sensitive to the needs of VAW survivors. This includes 1) technical assistance to legal drafters of the amended Legal Aid Law and to develop joint UN recommendations together with UNDP, UNICEF, UNODC, UNAIDS, highlighting gaps with international normative frameworks; and 2) support to develop a guideline for legal aid providers, reflecting the legislative changes of the criminal laws in 2015 and promoting gender-sensitive and survivor-centred response based on international standards. Materials developed through the support to Judicial Academy and UNODC's handbook for legal aid providers on domestic violence cases will be utilized for this purpose.
In Mexico, UN Women and eleven other UN agencies launched a campaign against early and child marriage, to establish eighteen as the minimum age for marriage at federal and state level without exception. The Mexican Senate and the Congress of Oaxaca announced reforms on the issue, while the President pledged to support the campaign and eradicate early marriage in law and practice.
In Central African Republic, where the current crisis has affected the social fabric of society and survivors of GBV are stigmatised, deprived of support and known to engage in risky coping strategies such as transactional sex for survival, FAO has partnered with UN Women to ensure that women affected by the conflict, including GBV survivors, benefit from livelihood strategies.
UN Women, as one of the partners of the public-private partneship Together for Girls (TfG), has contributed to global discussions around improved coordination between VAW and violence against children (VAC) data collection initiatives. UN Women has also been a key TfG partner in the development of the Every Hour Matters Campaign, a global advocacy campaign to increase awareness about the critical importance of quickly accessing post-rape care. The partnership also includes other UN agencies, such as UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO, PAHO and UNFPA.
UN Women developed costing frameworks that provide the foundation for understanding the resources needed for comprehensive support services for survivors of violence. These frameworks were developed in Lao PDR, Indonesia and Timor-Leste.
In Viet Nam, UN Women supported capacity building to better respond to violence against women by assisting the Judicial Academy, the national judicial training institution. With UN Women’s support, the Judicial Academy now has a training modules which will be used to train prospective judges, prosecutors and lawyers on international standards to address VAW. To accompany the training module, a casebook containing 100 cases of domestic and sexual violence and video clips were finalized after being piloted with lecturers, trainers and practitioners from multiple institutions.
UN Women has been instrumental in ensuring that the Prevention against Domestic Violence Bill was adopted by the national Parliament in Kenya. This was a significant achievement, since Kenya previously did not have a specific law for prevention and response to domestic violence.
UN Women with UNIC (United Nations Information Centres) on behalf of the UN System in Cameroon in partnership with the Ministry of Women Empowerment and the Family (MINPROFF) organized the official launching ceremony of 16 days activism within UNSG’s Orange Campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women”, on 25 November 2015, on the theme “from peace in the Home to peace in the world, make education safe for all”. The ceremony was presided by the Minister. Discussions centred on efforts made by both the UN and Cameroon to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, with the Minister condemning the use of women and girls as instruments of terrorism in Cameroon and Nigeria by the Boko Haram terrorist group. The UNSG’s message was read by the Acting UN Resident Coordinator, while UNIC Yaounde prepared and distributed information kits comprised of UNSG message, press releases on actions taken by UN to combat this social ill to the media and participants. The ceremony was reported on the UNIC’s website and Facebook page.
UN Women’s Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces Global Flagship Initiative has helped Quezon City, in the Philippines, take the first step in its safe city programme towards ensuring safe streets: a scoping study that collects information on violence against women and girls in public spaces. The study, drawing in part on the use of safety audits, where women and men, girls and boys walk through neighbourhoods to identify safe and unsafe spaces, revealed a number of issues that had long remained unnoticed, such as insufficient legal protection and fear of retaliation from reporting crimes. Quezon City is just one of 23 cities around the world working with UN Women, local governments, women's rights organizations and other partners to prevent and respond to sexual violence against women and girls in public spaces. They include New Delhi, Rabat, New York, Kigali, and Port Moresby, and since 2015 also Medellin, and Brussels.