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In Belarus, in partnership with UNFPA, UNICEF and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, IOM provided tools and technical assistance to NGOs to improve national capacity to counteract and prevent domestic violence, especially against women and children. This project launched a Pilot Seminar on the relationship between domestic violence and trafficking in women and children. Counter-trafficking NGOs, judges, prosecutors, law-enforcement officials and representatives of the border troops of Belarus participated in this event. The seminar has brought the attention to and initiated a dialogue among the relevant actors on this topic. It established a forum for relevant parties to work together and improve various legal and support provisions for victims of trafficking and domestic violence. Overall, ten NGOs, 75 NGOs’ staff members, 45 law-enforcement officials and over 40 other specialists received training as part of this project. The project also referred at least 700 victims of domestic violence for specialized assistance.
WHO provides support to its collaborating centres and research institutions to strengthen capacity to implement research – including on ethical and safety aspects of conducting research on violence against women, and through workshops and courses on appropriate research methods for this topic. To facilitate this effort, WHO and RTI (Response to Interventions) International published ethical and safety guidelines for interventions research on VAW in 2016.
In Egypt, UNODC contributed to the government's strengthening of its response to violence against women and girls and began developing training manuals on the appropriate handling of such cases by police and prosecutors.
In Vietnam, UNODC developed training materials on domestic violence for judges and court personnel and trained police officers and legal aid providers to enhance their responses to domestic violence. Domestic violence response checklists and information collection forms helped front-line officers in identifying and acting on reported cases. UNODC helped develop a ministerial circular on gender equality in legal aid services and trained legal aid officers and pro bono lawyers providing legal aid for victims of domestic violence.
Within the framework of UN Secretary-General’s campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women”, UNIC (United Nations Information Centres) Beirut, Lebanon in partnership with the Theatre Club at the Balamand University in Lebanon produced a theatre play on the issue of violence against women targeting school students - a work that was fully supported and sponsored by the Lebanese Minister of Education and Higher Education. The play, entitled “We Are All Humans”, presented real cases of violence against women within families in Lebanon through a vibrant script and a combination of gestures, songs, music and dance performed by university students. It tackles the hereditary violence against women and sheds light on physical and moral violence practiced directly or indirectly against girls in society. UNIC took part in the script drafting and the directing process to reflect the real objectives of the UNiTE campaign aiming to prevent all forms of violence against women and girls and eliminate this scourge.
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.
In Mexico, UNODC carried out technical assessments and conducted training to increase the quality and accuracy of local interventions in crime prevention, victim assistance and support, and violence against women. In 2015, approximately 2,500 public officials participated in these activities.
UNODC, with its Global Programmes against trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants and field based projects, follows a victims'/migrants' rights-centred and gender-specific approach, aiming to ensure protection of human rights of trafficked persons and smuggled migrants. With women and girls being a particularly vulnerable group, UNODC seeks to contribute to gender equality by strengthening the rights and the position of victims and smuggled migrants during investigation and prosecution by competent authorities. The Global Programmes seek to ensure, where possible, a gender balance in the different activities, notably with regard to participants in capacity building activities/workshops. Performance indicators are, where possible, disaggregated by sex and age. Also, gender is incorporated into questionnaires given to participants (e.g. country assessments, training questionnaires, etc).
In Mexico, UNODC continued to provide normative assistance on criminal justice and prison reform with emphasis on training and awareness-raising on violence against women.