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WHO held an expert meeting on primary prevention of intimate partner violence and sexual violence on 2-3 May in Geneva (report and background paper available in the WHO website).

UNFPA and WHO jointly hosted a meeting on “Prenatal Sex Selection for Non-Health Reasons” in June 2009 in order to build a common understanding that will lead to the issuance of a joint UN inter-agency statement on the subject.

WHO is currently finalizing a systematic review of evidence on effective interventions to address violence against women and HIV for peer-reviewed publication. A systematic review of evidence on the links between violence against sex workers and risk of STI and HIV infection as well as of effective interventions to reduce violence against sex workers is being finalized for peer-reviewed publication. In addition, grey literature is being reviewed and a technical consultation is being convened to document "good practices" in preventing and addressing violence against sex workers in the context of HIV/AIDS in Montreux on January 30-31 2012. The outcomes of the systematic review and the technical consultation will be the basis for developing a section on addressing violence against sex workers in the WHO Guidelines on HIV prevention, treatment and care among sex workers.

With the support of UN Action, WHO organized, in collaboration with UNICEF and UNFPA, a technical meeting on responding to the psychosocial and mental health needs of survivors of sexual violence. The meeting in November 2011 reviewed the evidence and experiences from the field and made programmatic, policy and research recommendations.

WHO is finalizing clinical and policy guidelines for the health sector response to intimate partner and sexual violence. The Guidelines Development Group (GDG), bringing together researchers, practitioners and policy makers, met in September 2011 to review the evidence and develop evidence-based recommendations for the health sector response to these forms of violence. A draft is being reviewed by the GDG and will be finalized by June 2012. A Programming Guide on Addressing violence against women in the context of HIV is also being finalized.

WHO has developed various training programmes, such as Teach-VIP that includes modules on intimate partner and sexual violence; a virtual course on comprehensive care for sexual and domestic violence victims (PAHO). WHO, with PATH, has developed Researching violence against women: A practical guide for researchers and activists that will be used as the basis of regional training courses. It also developed training packages on management of childbirth for women with FGM.

With the Sexual Violence Research Initiative, WHO is supporting capacity building of health services to respond to the consequences of sexual violence in sub-Saharan Africa.

WHO developed a Handbook for the documentation of interpersonal violence prevention programmes, which provides guidance on how to document violence programmes, as a basis for monitoring and evaluation of interventions to prevent and reduce violence. It also developed Preventing child maltreatment: a guide to taking action and generating evidence to assist countries to design, deliver, and measure the impact of programmes for the prevention of child maltreatment by parents and caregivers; and Preventing injuries and violence: A guide for ministries of health, which provides guidance to ministries of health for a public health approach to violence prevention. It covers policy development, data collection, advocacy work and capacity building.

WHO developed ethical and safety recommendations for interviewing trafficked women, which contain recommendations for researchers, media, police and service providers who are new to working with trafficked women.

In a meeting held by WHO in March 2009 the implementation and evaluation of health sector interventions was reviewed and an outline for guidance to the health sector, with a focus on resource poor settings, was developed.