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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.
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.
Dominican Republic Country Office: WFP contributed to the National March with the slogan #NiUnEntierroMas, #NiMuertasNiPresasVivayLibreslasqueremos, mobilization began with more than 500 people, mostly young people and several civil society organizations, marched from Correa and Cidrón Avenue to the Senate of the Republic in proclamation that lower femicides against women.
DRC Country Office:
The protection challenges faced by the population in DRC are multiple given the persistent unrest and conflict, and complexity of the food security crisis. Like all humanitarian crises around the world, children and women are the most affected. However, in DRC, women are particularly vulnerable due to the prevalence of gender inequality and sexual and gender-based violence.
WFP seeks to counteract any risks beneficiaries face in accessing WFP assistance through sensitization of communities. Prior to the registration of beneficiaries for assistance, WFP informed the local population about its interventions, ensuring understanding of the purpose, intended beneficiaries, and their entitlements.
This was particularly relevant in 2018 given the expansion of cash assistance, as the transfer was provided to the woman of the household and sensitization was needed to minimize the risk of intra-household conflict or domestic violence. WFP also provided beneficiary cards specifying the name of the cardholder's village during household registration which was important for the prevention of fraud and for ensuring the transfer was given to the intended beneficiary. Sensitization also enabled beneficiaries to assist in identifying people that were not members of their village or were not entitled to any assistance, further reducing the risk of fraud.
Complaints and feedback committees were available at distribution sites to address beneficiary complaints regarding protection-related issues.
Guatemala Country Office:
Organized workshops in all WFP project sites on awareness raising and prevention of GBV for both women and men. ALL countries and RBP: internal awareness and information sessions on WFP policies on sexual harassment and abuse of power.
Mozambique Country Office:
Theatre group Utchessa in Tete premiered the piece they wrote on the theme of prevention of violence against women and girls, which was also shown in 20 other communities, coinciding with WFP's pilot on activities with cash modality.
Myanmar Country and Field Offices:
- WFP’s ensured financing (USD1,000) and technical commitments Union Level High Event organized by Department of Social Welfare in Nay Pyi Taw on 26 November.
- Displayed WFP’s orange corner, contributed key chain and orange brooch
- WFP’s contribution (USD 700) to the Gender Equality Network (GEN) for the movement of White Ribbon Campaign and NiNi participated in the Regional Level Event organized by GEN and regional government
- WFP contributed and participated joint orange campaign in Lashio and Myityina (USD 400 each)
- WFP’s activities: Interactive session with children (School Feeding), IDPs and engaging men to end GBV and to support GBV survivors
- Awareness raising session with primary students, teachers and parents to prevent and end Gender-based Violence (GEV), School Feeding Programme, Myin Gyune Basic Education Primary School in Pakokku, Magwe Region
- Awareness session on how WFP mitigates and prevents GBV in each of WFP’s activities and sharing GBV knowledge with internally displaced people (IDP) in Nan Kham IDP Camp, Lashio, northern Shan State
- Awareness session on how WFP mitigates and prevents GBV in each of WFP’s activities and sharing GBV knowledge with IDPs in Niang Dung Baptist Church IDP Camp, Myitkyina, Kachin State
- Awareness raising session on how WFP mitigates and
- prevents GBV and sharing of GBV knowledge with IDPs in Nan Kham IDP Camp, Northern Shan
Nigeria Country Office:
WFP Abuja organised a Symposium on Ending Violence against Women & Girls “Ending VAWG Palaver; we deserve to be heard! Hear me too!” with a focus on young female politicians to be held in Abuja with guest speakers (activists, survivors and women rights’ defenders), stage performances, viewing of the documentary, and the reading of essays by students.
Nicaragua Country Office:
On December 05 and 06, 2018, within the framework of this campaign, a workshop was held on "New masculinities” addressed to the male staff of the Country Office and the field offices of Siuna and Puerto Cabezas located in the Region of North Atlantic of the Country. A total of 22 people participated in this event.
Panama Regional Bureau:
- WFP supported “The Full Moon of Drums”, an interactive, cultural and free family festival that attracts about 50,000 people a year inspired to play drums, dance and sing to the rhythm of music in support for GBV survivors.
- The Regional Bureau joined efforts as part of the UNiTE interagency group (See sway 2018 16 days of activism)
Syria Aleppo Field Office:
During the 16 Days of Activism to end gender-based violence, an Iftar banquet was held for 65 teenage girls from Kafalat Al Tofoolah orphanage, in order to contribute to their social integration within society and let them have an overview of World Food Programme and what it does in Syria. The banquet was preceded by a short session to raise awareness among the girls on the importance of education, and how they can be efficient member in society through continuing their study journey. The Iftar included many musical breaks presented by the girls, Dervishes presentation, and traditional Aleppo-featured songs. Such activities are every important in the sense that WFP in this way keeps population informed about its mandate, and at the same time draws attention to a certain category of society; the orphans, who must be given full care to grow up into productive adults
Zambia Country Office:
During the 16 Days of Activism, the Zambia Country Office excitingly voiced out for all survivors as Men say NO to GBV. Coupled with Gender Focal Point presenting on GBV and Harassment in all its forms, action points were made to strengthen the voice for all WFP beneficiaries to Hear the Voice in ending GBV.
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
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.
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.
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 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.
UNODC promotes the Blue Heart Campaign against Human Trafficking. In the framework of the UNODC Education for Justice Initiative, the Office raised awareness on trafficking in persons through education, working closely with youth and academics to look into key concepts of trafficking and how this affects in particular women and girls, and how education can contribute to crime prevention and promotion of legality and justice. This includes dedicated modules and resources on gender and organized crime, including trafficking in persons. UNODC published an article on gender-responsive approaches in evaluation and programming to better address trafficking in persons (p. 22 ff.)
In Mexico, UNODC supported the development of a videogame called Chuka, which aims to teach children to recognize the most common types of violence against women and girls, and act assertively when facing different representations of such violence.