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In November 2008, ESCWA held the second regional workshop on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against women for Judges and Parliamentarians, with a special focus on the role of judges and parliamentarians in preventing and responding to violence against women.

A first pilot training on conducting women’s safety audits for the Caribbean was held in Kingston, Jamaica, in mid-November 2008, with 30 participants from Jamaica, Grenada, St Lucia, and Haiti. A concept note by UNDP and UN-HABITAT, submitted to the Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund for up-scaling this programme to cover other municipalities in Jamaica, has been accepted.

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, supported the financing of domestic violence courts with senior African judges and, gender-responsive budgeting work that resulted in the earmarking of funds for gender-justice courts and women's prisons in Venezuela.

UNHCR supported the training of community and health services staff to improve their response to sexual violence and exploitation, to ensure safe access to services and to develop peer HIV prevention programmes for vulnerable groups.

In Turkey, more than 2 million soldiers were trained by UNFPA-supported initiatives on gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health. Also in Turkey, by the end of 2008, 250 police facilitators were trained on domestic violence prevention who, in turn, trained 40,000 of their peers.

In partnership with a wide range of stakeholders, UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, supported: a police training on violence against women and human trafficking in Nigeria; a training on sexual and gender-based violence for all police recruits in Uganda; the establishment of gender coordinating desks within the Defense Forces in Sudan and Burundi; trainings of Gacaca judges in Rwanda dealing with sexual and gender-based violence cases; training of 100 Vietnamese National Assembly deputies on the implementation of the Family Violence Prevention Law. It also provided technical inputs to the African Union’s Committee of Inquiry in Allegations of Sexual Misconduct in Sudan.

OHCHR organised training activities on women’s rights and violence against women for Arab-speaking NGOs; Iraqi NGOs; judges from the United Arab Emirates; NGOs and parliamentarians from Bahrain. Gender-based violence in Sudan was also covered.

In Argentina, OHCHR  started supporting the process of adaptation of the Latin American Model Protocol for the investigation of gender-related killings of women (feminicide), similar actions will take place in Chile and Peru. OHCHR RO for Central America and UN Women Regional Office for Latin America organized workshops with the Prosecutor’s specialized Unit for adaptation of the Latin American Model Protocol. The workshop also shared the Brazil experience with the adaptation of the Protocol. Support will continue into 2017. In Chile, the Interagency Group on Gender and Human Rights co-organized a workshop with  the Ministry of Interior to discuss the different impact on women, men, girls and boys, and that women and men have different capacities to respond according to their social, economic, cultural and geographical situation and therefore differentiated answers and solutions are required.

In Mexico, UNODC supported capacity building for prosecutors and judges in prosecuting violence against women case and providing assistance to victims. A new project in 19 Mexican states started developing capacities of first response police officers and emergency services of the federal police for victims of gender-based violence.

In the Asia-Pacific region, UNODC conducted a training of trainers on effective prosecution responses to violence against women and girls, attended by prosecutors from 10 countries.