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IOM’s efforts to improve the capacity to identify GBV risks continued, including through the use of the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM). The DTM is a system that regularly captures, processes and disseminates multi-layered primary data and information on the mobility, locations, vulnerabilities and needs of displaced populations at national, regional and global levels, now contains protection and GBV risk indicators. In the aims of developing tools to facilitate the analysis and reporting of GBV risk-sensitive data collected through the DTM, DTM-GBV workshops have been organized. The DTM also made progress in standardizing data dictionaries including GBV-risk related data and standard operating procedures for collecting this type of data in its response. Furthermore, IOM decided to review its DTM data monitoring system to better capture its use by other clusters and agencies, including the Protection, Child Protection and GBV sectors. 36 DTM operations reported collecting gender sensitive and GBV-risk related data at the end of 2017.
1. The ILO report “Care work and care jobs for the future of work” gathers diverse data on the presence of violence and harassment in care work and acknowledges that, “on occasion, care workers experience violence and harassment” and that “health-care workers report some of the highest levels of violence compared to other industries or sectors”. See: ILO. 2018. Care Work and Care Jobs for the Future of Decent Work (Geneva).
2. A national questionnaire and a paper was developed in Egypt in early 2018 to better understand the dimension of violence at work. The paper is under finalization.
The UNESCO, UN Women and UNFPA Joint Programme on Empowering Adolescent Girls and Young Women through Education is, in Tanzania, supporting the reform of discriminatory legislations for adolescent girls and strengthening coordination mechanisms on violence against women and girls.
Drafting of the UN-EU Spotlights Initiative for Nigeria, which will focus on fighting violence against women and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
The December 2017 UNECE Work Session on Gender Statistics ( http://www.unece.org/index.php?id=45133) included seven contributions dealing with statistics on violence against women. Experts from national statistical offices and international organizations exchanged knowledge and ideas about survey methodology, harmonization, garnering political support for conducting specialized surveys, and other topics in the measurement of violence against women.
ACDemocracia worked in Ecuador to promote access to justice for women and girl survivors of violence. The UN Trust Fund-supported project seeks to promote the application of normative frameworks and policies for the protection of women’s rights by influencing legislative reform and changing cultural norms. The project is working with the Decentralized Autonomous Governments to strengthen the institutional response to violence at the local level.
At least 20,000 people received information on women’s right to live free of violence through various publicity initiatives, including broadcasts on the national and international media. By providing short six-week courses for 92 people, the project was able to increase the number of women and girls survivors supported to 699, an almost 10-fold increase from the start of the project.
A petition was launched in support of a comprehensive law on violence against women and girls which gathered 27,000 physical and 10,000 virtual signatures from all over the country. In January 2018, ACDemocracia led advocacy along with the National Coalition of Women and UN Women for the adoption of a new Comprehensive Law for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women, which was approved with 90 per cent votes in favour by the parliament in Ecuador.
ESCWA provided technical support on estimating the cost marital violence through a national consultation with the State of Palestine and a training with the Palestinian Central Bureau for Statistics on developing relevant questions on costing marital violence for a forthcoming prevalence survey on violence. The data gathered within the survey will assist the State of Palestine in developing a comprehensive response to marital violence.
ESCWA, in partnership with UN Women and the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at the Lebanese American University, published the study “Status of Arab Women Report 2017: Violence Against Women: What Is at Stake?” The study focuses on intimate partner violence and its economic costs to Arab states, and advocates for costing as an innovative approach and advocacy tool to assess the full impact of such violence on women, families, communities and the state.
ESCWA, in partnership with UN Women, published the technical paper, “Estimating the Costs of Marital Violence in the Arab Region: Operational Model,” which was informed by the earlier study on the “Status of Arab Women Report 2017: Violence Against Women: What Is at Stake?” The paper proposes three different entry points for costing marital violence in the region in an effort to encourage member states to strengthen their socio-economic and legal responses to such violence.
ESCWA published the study "Women, Peace and Security: The Role of Institutions at Times of Peace and War." This study explores the women, peace and security agenda and the response in the Arab region, including an analysis of national women’s machineries, national human rights institutions, the security sector, and civil society institutions during times of stability and conflict and includes case studies on Libya and Yemen.
ESCWA published the study “The State of Gender Justice in the Arab Region,” which maps the barriers and opportunities to achieving gender justice in the Arab region, including formal and informal mechanisms for addressing violence against women. The study calls on Member States to create a more enabling legislative environment, enhance the capabilities of accountability institutions, and foster an empowering socio-economic environment for true gender justice.
FAO facilitates the preparation of Country Gender Assessments for agriculture and food security, as part of the implementation of its Gender Equality Policy. During 2017 and 2018 several CGAs were finalized with GBV analysis forming a part of the assessment.
As per its Strategic Framework 2018-21, UNV supports members states in developing legislation that promote volunteerism and volunteer action. Emphasis is put on mainstreaming gender into these policies and legislation.
Gender analysis is at the core of OCHA’s central strategic planning and field-focused operational planning. The IASC Gender Marker, introduced in 2010, also guides OCHA-managed funding and financing. OCHA’s Country Offices has also played a key role in further mainstreaming gender in the Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNOs) and Humanitarian Response Plans (HRPs). In 2017, in 25% of HRPs gender analysis fully defined how HRP implementation took into account distinct needs/risks related to gender, and in 70% of HRPs gender analysis partially informed implementation.
In 2017, out of the 397 projects funded by CERF, 280 (71%) had a Gender Marker 2a indicating strong gender mainstreaming. A total of 77 (19%) had a 2b indicating a targeted gender action and 22 projects (6%) had a Gender Marker 1, meaning limited gender consideration. Eighteen (18 or 4%) were marked “Non- Applicable” as they dealt with the provision of common services to humanitarian partners (air operations, logistics, emergency telecommunications, safety and security), and none (0) were marked 0 which means that all CERF-funded projects for 2017 considered gender to an extent or another in their design. Gender Based Violence was the focus action of 27 projects (7%) of all the 397 projects funded by CERF in 2017, 234 projects (59%) had a GBV component, and 135 projects (34%) had no GBV related activity or component one (1) project was not marked for GBV.
All OCHA managed Country Based-Pooled Funds (CPBFs) apply the Gender Marker in all project proposals. In 2017, 79% of CPBFs projects were designed to contribute significantly to gender equality (76% in 2016), equivalent to $511 million. CBPFs provide the largest source of direct funding for local NGOs, including women’s organizations
In OCHA’s core digital assets – unocha.org, reliefweb.int and HDX – particular attention was given to highlighting how humanitarian crises impact women and children. For example, on ReliefWeb 1,835 documents were posted in 2017 on Gender-Based Violence and 1,288 Women, Peace and Security documents.
DRC
After the promulgation of the revised Family Code, United Nations agencies mobilized to disseminate texts and laws favorable to women's rights (the Family Code, the Parity Act, the Child Protection Act, the Act on the Punishment of Sexual Violence and the Act on the Protection of Persons Living with HIV), The Maputo Protocol on Gender and Development, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UN Security Council resolutions (notably Resolution 1325) during the 16 Days of Activism campaigns in November 2017, Amani Festival in February 2018 and Women's Month in March 2018. A draft bill on the reparation and compensation mechanism for victims of sexual violence has been submitted to the Senate. The agencies support the government in the process of reviewing the national strategy to combat sexual and gender-based violence and the national action plan 1325.
SENEGAL
Senegal has a legal framework favorable to the elimination of gender-based violence through the law against excision, the law on parity, the law for nationality, the Senegal Emerging Plan, the National Strategy for Equity and Gender Equality, the National Strategy for the Promotion of Rights and Protection of Children.
CABO VERDE
In the continued efforts to support the implementation of the CEDAW and other international and regional normative frameworks on women’s human rights, in 2017 the UN Women supported the evaluation of the 6-years implementation of the law. The evaluation has provided several insights and evidences of the best practices and lesson learnt that informed the Government in how to improve the procedures and promote new responses to face the challenges of the implementation of the GBV law. This analysis has provided key elements for the monitoring of the national goals for eliminating GBV in alignment with international human rights and gender frameworks and provided guidance’s to where the actors responsible for the application of the law should improve to better tackle this phenomenon in Cabo Verde. The Evaluation of the Implementation of GBV Law has been a powerful instrument of discussion and analyses, UNW supported the government by presenting the final results to public and stakeholders. The conducted evaluation has shown, that, even so, challenges persist, including with the moroseness of judicial responses and in the institutionalization of victim support services, geared toward their sustainability thereof.
MALI
Thanks to the support of development partners including UN Women and a draft law against female circumcision submitted to the National Assembly (NA) of Mali by the PACTE Group, the idea of a law against GBV was formed on the initiative of a working commission composed of national and international organizations under the aegis of the NGO ACORD Mali supported by UN Women. The Government of Mali through the Ministry of Women has taken the lead through the National Programme to Combat the Practice of Excision (PNLE). A committee to monitor the law was set up by ministerial order and this committee delegated a technical team of five national and international experts (two lawyers and an anthropologist from Mali and two volunteer Canadian legal advisors) to draft a bill against GBV in Mali. The Ministry of Gender and the Ministry of Justice will bring this draft bill before the Government and the National Assembly.
CAMEROON
In humanitarian settings, 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. Their increased commitment and actions in the field translating the humanitarian principles and national standards in coordination with other humanitarian actors resulted in gender-based violence cases received by gender desk officers at police stations. UNWOMEN also started to work with judicial actors on VAW in 2017 through magistrat training, and it is expected that further collaborative work with Ministry of Justice will continue in 2018 to strengthen their capacity to treat cases with sensitivity and full understanding of the VAW issues
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.
NIGER
The Constitution of 25 November 2011 and all subsequent texts support the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls, including the quota law which grants a certain number of elective and nominative places to women the 1325 decree 2017 on the retention of girls in school. All these texts exist but the effectiveness of their application remains problematic.
GUINEA CONAKRY, TOGO, CHAD
Knowledge production and advocacy on violence and maternal health
In Guinea Conakry, about 100 health workers have been trained on GBV and its consequences.
In Togo, the same study generated strong interest from partners. The United Nations system and UNFPA are taking a closer look at this phenomenon.
In Guinea, the capacities of 100 health providers were sensitized on violence in delivery rooms with the contribution of several local NGOs.
Chad has organized advocacy for the dissemination of the penal code through the training of community leaders on the provisions of the penal code and Law 029 prohibiting child marriage.