United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

UN Women has continued working with other UN agencies to finalize a UN global joint programme to build sustained national capacities to implement VAW prevalence surveys in line with international standards and SDG monitoring requirements, as part of UN Women’s Flagship Programme Initiative “Better production and use of gender statistics for evidence-based localization of the SDGs”.

In Georgia, UN Women supported the Domestic Violence Council to harmonize legislation with the Istanbul Convention and draft a governmental decree to institutionalize the gender equality mechanism within the executive branch of the government. Planned legislative amendments will enhance the Domestic Violence Law to reflect other forms of violence against women, include protective orders, criminalize stalking and female genital mutilation, and align the concept of rape with international standards.

Under the Women, Peace and Security Program, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between UN Women and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, through the Directorate General for CVAW in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq which has notably influenced Yezidi Religious Leaders to declare acceptance of the women and girls who were assaulted and raped by ISIL elements back to their communities. UN Women, NGO partners, Baghdad Women Association, and Women Empowerment Organization were able to document cases of violence for advocacy purposes with media, government and foreign dignitaries, established Alliance 1325 and pressed for the Emergency Operation Room to elevate support and protection for women and girls in the face of ISIL.  These NGOs, the Alliance, UN Women CSAG along with other CSOs were able to lobby for the emergence of a women machinery heralded in 2017 as Women Empowerment Department in Baghdad replacing the dismantled Ministry of Women.

In 2016, a new record number of at least 105 countries joined the UNiTE campaign’s “Orange the World” movement in support of the 16 Days of Activism. From marches in Uganda, Serbia, and Timor-Leste, a public rally on motorbikes in Pakistan, orange bike rides in India and the Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan, and the lighting of symbolic buildings in orange across the globe.

Supported by UN Women, Georgian Public Defender’s Office developed and institutionalized a monitoring tool to monitor the state shelters for survivors of violence against women on a regular basis.

UN Women is working with UNDP in the finalization of a policy and programming guidance for prevention of violence against women in elections (VAWE). The guidance aims to fill gaps in current knowledge by providing an overview of the specific forms of VAWE, including scope, types, victims and perpetrators, and the range of actions that can be taken at each phase of the electoral cycle to prevent and mitigate it. The Guide is targeted at the key stakeholders and actors who are positioned to act to prevent and mitigate VAWE, and to international organizations and those providing programming support on electoral assistance, women’s political participation and ending violence against women. It is also targeted at members of political parties, particularly the leadership of those parties, civil society organizations (CSOs), women’s groups and gender equality activists.

UN Women continued to work with the Government of Moldova and civil society organization partners to help over 1,000 women access services as survivors of violence. Through the positive deviance approach, an innovative approach to help communities drive asset-based solutions, and UN Women’s coordination role, survivors advocated concrete actions to end violence against women and were involved as key experts on eliminating violence against women in legislative, institutional and community initiatives. The number of women who sought services within the first four months of implementing this approach is a ten-fold increase compared to the scope of previous activities. Central and local public officials, civil society organizations and media were also essential actors in this approach and subsequent result. The world renown academic institutions like Oxford University and others have expressed their interest in further analyzing Moldova’s innovative experience and results and further document it for academic use.  The Executive Program, run jointly by HEC Paris and the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford has invited the Moldova Country Office to present the Innovation in EVAW, and thus, to mainstream the case into their mainstream curriculum already from March, 2017.

The UNiTE Group for the Americas and the Caribbean, including 9 agencies -PAHO, UNDP, OHCHR, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNHCR, ECLAC, WFP and UN Women- and the IDB and the OAS, developed 12 Key Messages to Eradicate Violence Against Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. This unprecedented effort led by UN Women, systematized the lessons learned from all the publications and knowledge produced in the context of the UNiTE Campaign in the last 7 years. These messages were launched in the framework of the Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which took place in Montevideo in October of 2016. Thereafter, the messages were the basis for the celebrations of November 25th at regional and country level.

In 2016, Serbia continued to make significant improvements in multi-sector coordination and monitoring of violence against women, with substantial support from UN Women. Twenty municipalities in Serbia achieved high levels of multi-sector cooperation in response to cases of violence against women. Professionals from the  Centers for Social Work, health and educational institutions, judiciary and police participated at the case conferences on individual cases of violence and in line with the local level protocols responded to the specific needs of women victims of violence. The women victims of violence benefited from the services and protection measures provided by the local institutions in a timely, complementary and coordinated manner. The Results of the case conferences are captured in reports and published by the Provincial Secretariat for Demography, Social Welfare and Gender Equality (PSEEGE). PSEEGE and UN Women piloted a model for monitoring violence in Vojvodina Province and initiated discussions to implement the model at the national level.

UN Women established a Community of Practice (CoP) for stakeholders working on the prevention of and response to violence against women and girls. Specific objectives of the Flagship Programming Initiatives (FPI) CoP include: Making existing knowledge, tools and approaches on the practice available and easily accessible to members of the CoP, allowing members to share concrete experience, challenges and good-practices on the implementation of the FPI so that members can “learn from others”, and generating new knowledge and tools. This community of practice, which follows various channels of communication (knowledge online platform, webinars, email helpdesk and a focal points’ meeting) will be strengthened based on its users’ experience and on new developments within UN Women’s programmes.