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The UN Department of Public Information (DPI) supported and facilitated activities carried across the System for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November), as well as for the V-Day “One Billion Rising for Justice” initiative in February 2013. On the occasion of the International Day, a partnership was established with Google to include on their homepage a special “doodle” linking to DPI’s International Day website. The Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, took part in UN Women’s portraits photo gallery “I wear Orange because” on the occasion of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence.DPI’s network of 63 UNICs joined with UN Country Teams and others to organize over 100 public outreach activities throughout the world to mark the International Day, including exhibits, round-tables discussions, press conferences, and film screenings. UNICs also translated information materials on the issue into various languages including Turkish, Portuguese, Persian and Polish.DPI highlighted VAW and the “Orange Your World" campaign on its UN social media platforms – including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and Sina Weibo, in the six official languages, plus an additional 20 languages covered by UNICs. DPI’s UN Radio produced programmes on violence against women and girls in the six UN languages plus Kiswahili and Portuguese. UN Television covered the issue in several of its features for the magazine programme 21st Century, including on human trafficking of women and girls into Europe as well as “corrective rape” in South Africa. DPI’s UNifeed disseminated 19 related news stories. DPI’s News Centre produced 28 news stories highlighting the issue, available online, through social media and by email. The Department disseminated press releases, stories on iSeek and Delegate, briefings, and visual brand materials for the "End Rape in War" campaign managed by the Office of SRSG. DPI also provided photographic and webcast as well as coverage of a wide variety of events on VAW. The UN Academic Impact organized several activities to raise awareness of the issue amongst the academic community, including with an event held in March 2013 in association with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Hide

UNDP also organized numerous activities to raise awareness on the issue such as national campaigns on VAW in Albania, on trafficking in Argentina and Kosovo; the “From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World” campaign in Uzbekistan, as a part of the UNCT; sensitization of population in Cambodia and Madagascar, of pupils in Sierra Leone, university students in Timor-Leste, religious leaders in Afghanistan, and journalists in Algeria; production of awareness-raising material(videos, leaflets etc) in Argentina, Europe and CIS, Uzbekistan, Peru, as well as advocacy material on CSW 57 in Ghana; information sharing about procedures and available services for survivors of VAW in India. Hide

ESCAP and UN Women organized an advocacy event on “Ending Violence against Women and Girls” at the Sixth Asian and Pacific Population Conference on 18 September 2013 which focused on coordinated and multi-sectoral actions to prevent and end violence against women and girls in Asia and the Pacific. Hide

OHCHR initiated research on how human rights mechanisms have addressed harmful gender stereotypes and wrongful gender stereotyping aimed at informing further work to promote greater attention to states obligations and promising practices. The organization also continued its support to female human rights defenders through awareness-raising on the UN framework on the protection of human rights defenders; a regional workshop in Lebanon on women human rights defenders from Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco which brought together women human rights defenders and UN country representatives, including the SRVAW; an internship for two women human rights defenders from Papua New Guinea in Nepal in order to strengthen their monitoring and documentation capacity on sorcery-related killings of women and violations against women. Hide

UNDP engaged in a number of prevention, advocacy and awareness-raising initiatives throughout the year. Efforts included: working with Ministry of Justice and women’s groups in Niamey, Niger to reach 1,500 young people through their youth groups; collaborating with CSOs and the Family Support Units in Sierra Leone to reach 8,022 school chidren and their teachers from 54 schools; awareness raising campaigns targeting community leaders, youth and teachers in primary schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo; initiatives using social mobilization techniques and internet platforms to reach broad audiences in Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro, Serbia, India and Cambodia; monitoring of social media platforms under the P4P programme in the Asia Pacific Region to draw practical lessons from the campaigns in New Delhi, Hanoi and Beijing; development of the first ever comprehensive knowledge space dedicated to the Goverhnment’s efforts on violence against women; and continued operation of the “Community Legal Empowerment for Women” clinics in Sri Lanka to improve legal awareness on sexual and gender based violence and rights related to marriage, divorce and maintenance. Hide

In October 2012, on the occasion of the International Day of the Girl Child, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN WOMEN –co-hosted a high-level event in New York to address the issue of child marriage and called for renewed global action to end the practice. Hide

In 2012, through the advocacy efforts of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on FGM/C, 1,775 new communities publically declared their intention to abandon FGM/C, with Guinea Bissau becoming the 15th country where communities have announced their commitment to abandon. Since the establishment of the joint programme (2008), nearly 10,000 communities in 15 countries, representing about 8 million people have renounced the practice. Hide

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the ILO, in collaboration with the UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA, UN Women and the NGOs IBFAN-GIFA, launched the “Maternity Protection Resource Package. From Inspiration to Reality for All”. The package provides information, inspiration and tools to help organizations and individuals everywhere to strengthen and extend maternity protection to women in all types of economic activity. An ILO feature story on the issue of maternity-related discrimination at work was also published, available at: http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/features/WCMS_193975/lang--en/index.htm Hide

UN-HABITAT, in collaboration with UNICEF and UN-Women, developed a global programme “Safe and Sustainable Cities for All”. During 2012, the programme was launched in eight pilot cities ─ Greater Beirut (Lebanon), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Metro Manila (Philippines), Marrakesh (Morocco), Nairobi (Kenya), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), San José (Costa Rica) and Tegucigalpa (Honduras). Some city-level results of the programme include: a rapid assessment in 7 neighborhoods in Beirut, revealing interrelated challenges of poverty, overcrowding, and lack of safe public spaces for women, girls and children; the establishment of a permanent Safe Cities Committee within the Municipality in Marrakech which helped to increase resources for the Municipal Committee on Equity and Gender Equality; engagement of community members in participatory mapping of violence and safety conditions for women and girls in nine communities, in Rio; dialogues with informal settlers in Mandaluyong City, Manila, to design collaborative interventions and mainstream ‘safety’ into the city’s planning and budgeting processes.Some results of the global rogramme on “Safe Cities free from violence for women and girls”, led by UN Women, in collaboration with UN-Habitat, include the approval of an Amendment to the City Ordinance on Eliminating Violence against Women by the Quito Municipality to also target violence in public spaces; Safe Cities’ models and approaches are being integrated into a new government scheme in New Delhi aimed at enhancing women’s safety and policing services; the Mayor's office in Kigali is advocating for Safe Cities measures to be included in its city plan and budget and for legal reforms to also address sexual harassment and violence in public spaces; mainstreaming of Women’s Safety Audits into the planning processes of the Egyptian Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development.The Plan International, Women in Cities International and UN-Habitat joint programme “Because I am a Girl – Urban Programme” was launched in Hanoi (Vietnam), Delhi (India), Cairo (Egypt), Kampala (Uganda) and Lima (Peru). A rapid situational assessment (RSA) has been conducted to assess safety of girls in each of the five cities.UN-Habitat and local authorities of the Kupang and Belu districts in Indonesia, spearheaded a “Local-to-Local Dialogue“ for women, aimed at improving responses by local authorities to crises impacting women and empowering women, both from ex-refugees and host communities. UN-Habitat is supported by the Huairou Commission and by the local NGO CIS Timor. Such dialogues also offer the opportunity to exchange experiences among different grassroots female leaders from other post-conflict areas, in Southeast Asia. By supporting the role of organized women’s leadership in community development processes, the “Local-to-Local Dialogue provides a foundation to prevent and reduce existing practices of discrimination, marginalization and violence against women in post-conflict areas. Hide

DPI continues to raise awareness globally on the UN’s efforts to address violence against women through various information dissemination mechanisms, including: articles published in the delegate; activities undertaken through the United Nations Information Centres across the globe (e.g. Azerbaijan, Ghana and Panama); the Messengers for Peace programme and Chelize Theron’s advocacy on the issue; publications (e.g. “The Future We Want"; "Involving the Forgotten: Widows and Global Sustainable Development," and "Delivering Justice"); the intra/internet (i.e. six stories on iseek and the dedicated section on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, with relevant informational links and social media tools on the UN Calendar of Observances: Making a Difference); through UN visitor services (12 groups exploring women’s rights and violence and 3 sexual violence); in addition to the UN4U programme that reaches out to NYC schools having involved 62 UN staff members in 2012. Hide