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UN Women supported the office of the UN Secretary General in drafting three Secretary General’s reports on " Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations", "Intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls" and "Trafficking in women and girls”. These reports were presented to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly and have served as a basis for the negotiations of new resolutions on these subjects, which were approved at its 71st Session.
Focusing on strengthening political and institutional commitments, UN Women provided technical assistance in the drafting process of the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action on the Elimination of Violence against Women (2016-2025), which was adopted at the ASEAN Summit in November, 2015. The plan addresses violence prevention, access to justice and services for survivors of violence, and speaks to the role of men and boys in ending violence against women, including through social norms change.
Many of IOM’s overseas pre-departure cultural orientation programmes specifically address domestic violence, female genital mutilation and other such practices that are both harmful to women and against the prevailing rule of law. IOM is working on improving the way this is reflected in curriculum and key priority messages, in training manuals and in supporting activities. IOM is also exploring how to best adopt more effective learning methodologies in order for participants to understand the underlying reasons why these practices are illegal and may have serious consequences, including the removal of children from families by child protective services.
In 2014, OHCHR continued to undertake efforts to strengthen capacities of human rights components of peace missions and fact-finding bodies to investigate sexual and gender-based violence. OHCHR's three-day training on investigating conflict-related sexual violence was delivered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan (Darfur), and Mali.
In March 2016 a webinar on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Food Security and Nutrition interventions was delivered, available to all staff, as part of the roll-out of the new corporate guidelines. Tailored guidance will be provided to staff working on projects in decentralized offices during 2016 and 2017.
In 2015 FAO hired a consultant, Gender Expert (Gender-based violence and food security), to develop an FAO-specific Guidance on addressing gender-based violence. The aim of the Guidance titled, 'Protection from gender-based violence in food security and agriculture interventions: A Guide for FAO and partner staff' is to assist FAO country offices in designing and delivering food security and nutrition interventions in ways that prevent and mitigate gender-based violence and contributes to the protection of survivors and those most at risk.
UNODC convened an open-ended intergovernmental expert group meeting on gender-related killing of women and girls in Bangkok in November 2014, adopting recommendations for action against gender-related killing of women and girls (E/CN.15/2015/16).
The UNHCR Sexual and Gender Based Violence Guidelines developed in 2003 are currently in revision to bring them in line with relevant internal and external guidance and policy documents such as the UNHCR Need to Know Guidance on Working with Men and Boy Survivors of SGBV, the Policy on the Protection of Personal Data of Persons of Concern to UNHCR, and the IASC GBV Guidelines. The revised guidelines will be rolled-out in 2017.
Capacity-building of UNRWA staff, including trainings, has been a focus for UNRWA in ensuring that addressing Gender Based Violence is embedded into the work done by the different Agency’s programmes. To that effect, UNRWA has started training staff on identifying and addressing GBV through different levels of trainings. Trainings have served a dual purpose to not only in increasing staff capacity to respond to GBV, but also raise awareness and change perceptions of UNRWA staff. To support the training of staff, UNRWA developed a GBV manual which was developed in 2012. In order to monitor to what extent staff understand and acknowledge their roles and responsibilities to address GBV, UNRWA carried out biannual readiness assessment questionnaires in all core programmes. Further, by looking at the return on trainings through identification, it is clear that even within programmes which have received high levels of trainings there have been persistent obstacles to reporting the identification of GBV survivors and referring them to appropriate services. This shows that while trainings have been crucial, it has not been sufficient on its own. Supporting mechanisms, such as revisions to staff terms of references, accountability frameworks and reference tools and guidelines to support staff in implementation, are necessary to improve the effectiveness and efficacy of the response and to ensure sustainability. UNRWA has been able to target staff from all its different programmes, including health, relief, and education with more than 4000 trainings in the period 2014-2015.
The 'Global plan of action to strengthen the role of the health system within a national multisectoral response to address interpersonal violence, in particular against women and girls, and against children’ was endorsed by the 193 Member States of WHO at the May 2016 World Health Assembly. This plan encourages actions by MS, national and international partners and WHO along 4 strategic directions: Strengthening the health systems leadership and governance; providing comprehensive health, including SRH, services and training health providers ; strengthening prevention programming; and improving evidence and information to address violence against women and girls.