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Ending Child Marriage and Rescue and Second Chance Education for Girls in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Tanzania: UN Women through engagement of traditional leaders, CSOs and government departments advocated for ending child marriage, FGM and other harmful practices. Thousands of potential efforts for child marriage were prevented and many marriages that took place were annulled in these countries. For example, in Malawi 41% of the 2871 girls engaged under child marriage interventions in Salima, Dedza and Karonga are now able to claim their right to make vital decisions about their sexual health and well-being, re-enroll into primary and secondary education and reignite prospects of living a life without increased risk of violence, abuse, child marriages, ill health or early death. This was achieved through interventions in school clubs, awareness campaigns, capacity building sessions on GBV/SRHR and business management/entrepreneurship skills. This follows an extensive HeForShe campaign implemented by the Malawi Country Office in collaborations with UNFPA, Ministry of Gender, District Councils, Traditional leaders and HeForShe champions. A total of 4249 early child marriages have been annulled and 2871 number of girls re-enrolled into primary and secondary schools between 2017-2019.
In Mozambique, Rapariga Biz is a joint program, implemented in Nampula and Zambezia provinces by UNFPA, UN Women, UNICEF and UNESCO. It aims to improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of 1,085,447 girls and young women in Mozambique who live in the provinces of Nampula or Zambezia. These provinces are amongst the ones in the country with highest poverty levels in Mozambique, where women and young girls are burdened with a high level of discrimination and are at high risk of child marriage, early pregnancy, maternal mortality, obstetric fistula, violence and HIV. After training, the girls individually or organized in groups benefited from support (startup kits, tips on their business, etc.) to start their business. Silvia Daniel (22)[2], Albertina Martinho (20), Argentina Arnaldo (21), Telma Mauricio (18) and Neusa Joaquim (18) are some of the beneficiaries which who besides different trainings, that benefitted, they were also selected for poultry farming.
In Uganda, The establishment of Nakapiripiriti Satellite Legal Aid Clinic in Karamoja by ULS, supported by UN Women brought happiness to number of widows in accessing legal aid and protection services.
The value of intersectionality in understanding violence against women and girls
This policy brief explores the concept of intersectionality as a tool to analyze and understand the intersection of gender with other inequalities/oppressions (e.g., sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, indigeneity, immigration status, disability) in the context of violence against women and girls (VAWG). The report examines the impact of intersecting oppressions on the ability of survivors of VAWG to access services and obtain justice, as well as the importance of ‘by and for’ organizations in addressing the needs of marginalized women who face violence. It is available here.
Mapping of Sexual Violence Services in the Western Balkans and Turkey
The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence - also known as the Istanbul Convention - calls for adequate and accessible specialized support services for victims of sexual violence. However, in the Western Balkans and Turkey, despite the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, these standards have yet to be met. Services for victims of sexual violence are often missing, and where they do exist, they tend to be poorly implemented due to a lack of government funding and support. This mapping report identifies the existing services in the region, examines their implementation, and highlights the gaps in service provision. This publication was produced under the framework of the EU-UN Women regional programme on ending violence against women in the Western Balkans and Turkey, "Implementing Norms, Changing Minds," funded by the European Union. the report is available here.
Stars of Hope Society, the only association in Palestine that is managed by women with disabilities for women with disabilities, is using a grant from the UN Trust Fund to improve access to essential, safe and adequate multisectoral services. In the first six months of 2019, the grantee built out its infrastructure of the project and, in particular, on carrying out a context analysis and building capacity. As part of that effort it produced a disability mainstreaming manual and trained 22 representatives of organizations for women with disabilities on ending violence against women and girls. As part of efforts to mainstream disability in data collection on violence, the grantee persuaded the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics to include in its data collection team four female sign language interpreters, one of whom is living with disabilities.
Protection and assistance for victims of trafficking and victims of aggravated smuggling are issues addressed in all training and capacity building work concerning trafficking in persons that UNODC undertakes. All UNODC responses, activities and publications on trafficking in persons are gender- and age-responsive, human-rights-based and victim-centred.
UNODC manages the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking, which financially supports grass-roots NGOs who provide direct and immediate assistance to victims of trafficking. 90% of projects support victims who are women or girls. Donations are collected from 31 States and 32 private companies. So far, USD 3.5 million have been distributed to 60 NGOs world-wide. Currently, a fourth round of applications is being evaluated by the Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section (HTMSS) with over 330 NGOs applying for grants between USD 5,000-60,000 each.
In Guatemala, as part of the Office’s support to National Civil Police under the Joint UN Global Programme on Essential Services for Women and Girls subject to Violence, UNODC supported the attribution of additional functions to citizen service offices to help better support victims of gender-based violence.
ESCWA, in partnership with UNDP, UNFPA, and UN WOMEN, launched the study on Gender Justice and the Law in the Arab States Region. This study provides a base line assessment of laws and policies affecting the realization of gender equality and the protection of women from violence in the region. The 18 country reports highlight successful legal provisions and identify gaps that countries can target to meet their international obligations and commitments.
ESCWA presented a paper on the “missing links” in research on women’s economic empowerment in Arab States at the conference on “Economic Empowerment of Women and the Promotion of the Values of Peace, Justice and Citizenship” in Oman in December 2018. The paper argues that salient forms of discrimination, such as violence against women, are insufficiently analysed as barriers to women’s economic participation in the region. The paper suggests pathways to better integrate violence against women in the region’s economic research and policy agenda, including through national costings of the economic impact of violence against women.
ESCWA, in partnership with UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, and the National University of Ireland, Galway, is currently developing a model to cost the economic impact of child marriage in the Arab region.
ESCWA, in partnership with the League of Arab States and UN Women, organized a training workshop focused on the “Guidance Note for Comprehensive National-Level Reviews” to support participating member States in the timely preparation of their national-level reviews on progress made and challenges encountered in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
ESCWA participated in the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Gender Statistics (IAEG-GS) in the Arab Countries. The meetings brought together experts from the National Statistical Offices, Women Machineries, regional and international experts to review and discuss development of gender statistics for evidence-based policy making. This included: (i) methods for compiling and calculating the Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) indicators, and (ii) the final version of the ESCWA Household Survey Questionnaire on Violence against Women.
UNODC, Gender-related killing of women and girls (2018). The study gives an overview of the scope of gender-related killing of women and girls within and outside the family sphere.
UNODC, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (2018). The report shows that most of the victims detected across the world are females; mainly adult women, but also increasingly girls. Conflict situations create increased vulnerabilities for women and girls to become trafficking victims.
During the reporting period and among others for the 16 Days of Activism Against GBV Campaign, UNRWA organized hundreds of activities that were attended by 26,202 community members under the umbrella of the GBV Prevention Framework. As a result of theses activities 87 % of the participants felt comfortable promoting prevention of gender based violence.
In 2018, the UN Trust Fund published a technical annex to its Annual Report of 2017, providing an update on the results framework of its strategic plan, 2015–2020. As the first such report to be produced by the UN Trust Fund in its 20-year history, it involved the development of indicators, methods and systems to collect data, including input from, and in consultation with, more than 70 grantee organizations. As a result, the framework has been simplified to include three tiers of result types in order to better reflect which results can be attributed to the secretariat of the UN Trust Fund and which are achieved by the organizations themselves through the Trust Fund grant. A mid-term review of the current Trust Fund’s strategic plan was initiated in 2018, and the report is scheduled to be issued in early 2019.
Cuba Country Office:
As part of the Inter-agency Gender Group, WFP participated in knowledge sharing workshops on preliminary results of the National Survey on Gender Inequality (led by the Centre for Women Studies of the Cuban Women Federation), which also included analysis on gender-based violence issues. WFP also started to disseminate the results of this survey within the supported agricultural cooperatives.
Following the Sixth Biennial Meeting of States on small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, ODA revised the Programme of Action national reporting template to include for the first time two questions regarding gender considerations in the implementation of the Programme of Action, allowing. Reports are publicly available on the ODA website.
The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) launched a project on measuring illicit trafficking and community security through participatory SDG 16-based indicators and conducted capacity building sessions on the indicators, one of which is violence against women at the community level.
The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) published a study on the criminal use of ammunition and trafficking based on data collected from crime scenes in the Dominican Republic and Peru. The study discussed gender aspects, such as ammunition used in gender-specific crimes, gender of victims of crimes involving ammunition, gender roles in the trafficking of ammunition, and the inclusion of women in criminal investigations involving ammunition.
In October 2018, CEDAW adopted revised reporting guidelines for States parties, which integrate SDGs with a view to ensuring systematic reporting by States parties and collection of data to be used in assessing progress made on the implementation of all SDG targets.On 22 November 2018 to commemorate the International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women and which, inter alia, “called for strengthened cooperation between independent global and regional mechanisms, as common synergies and efforts to address violence against women under the existing normative framework on human rights, which will contribute to closing gaps in combating and preventing violence against women worldwide” the experts also called for the inclusion of monitoring mechanisms to ensure full implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 5.” (See: https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23921&LangID=Ettp://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22432&LangID=E );
On the occasion of the 16 Days of Advocacy on ending violence against women and International Human Rights Day in December 2018, the OHCHR supported the efforts of the SRVAW who reiterated her call for the establishment of a femicide watch to collect, analyse and review data at the national, regional and global levels.
On the occasion of International Women Human Rights Defenders Day the OHCHR supported the SRVAW, SUMEX and WGDAW, along with other relevant mandates in calling on States “to fulfil their commitment to enable that work, proclaimed almost 20 years ago in the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and reaffirmed five years ago in General Assembly resolution 68/181 on protecting women human rights defenders” https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23943&LangID=E