Measures

During the period March 2011 to June 2011, the UNODC Regional Office for Southern Africa organized, together with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat and the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization (SARPCCO), a 5-day national training workshop, like in November 2010, on the development of effective law enforcement responses to violence against women for law enforcement officials in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe during which a total of 138 law enforcement officers were trained. Furthermore, the Office developed and published contextualized national pocket book versions of the “UNODC Handbook for Effective Police Responses to Violence against Women” and its accompanying “Training Curriculum on Effective Police Responses to Violence against Women” for each of the above countries. Hide

In May 2011, UNODC Viet Nam, in cooperation with relevant national authorities, published a survey report on law enforcement practices and legal support available to victims of domestic violence. It presents information on what kind of action the police undertook when an incident of domestic violence was reported, how they treated the victims and what the result of the police intervention was. It is expected that the findings of the surveys will play a crucial role in determining existing gaps in Viet Nam’s response to domestic violence and plan future activities and initiatives to address those gaps. Hide

In November 2011, UNODC in cooperation with UN Women, UNFPA and UNDP and relevant national authorities, organized a joint conference on the role and responsibilities of the State to respond to domestic violence against women in Viet Nam. About 90 officials attended the conference, both from national and local level representing five different Ministries as well as civil society. Hide

WHO also provided technical support and capacity building as part of an interagency workshop on integrating gender-based violence and engaging men and boys for gender equality in national AIDS programmes in Istanbul in which more than 25 country teams comprising of national AIDS programme managers, civil society groups working on violence against women or representing women living or affected by HIV and UN partners participated. WHO is also exploring additional opportunities for capacity development through new e-learning technologies. Hide

WHO also, with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), has been calculating global and regional prevalence estimates of intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, and childhood sexual abuse for the Global Burden of Disease Study. Final prevalence estimates will be released in 2012. Likewise, systematic reviews have been completed on the associations between violence against women and a range of health effects related to mental health, sexual and reproductive health, injuries and death to be included as risk factors in the Global Burden of Disease Study. These estimates will provide sound evidence of the global health burden of violence against women. Hide

WHO supported Mahidol University in Thailand to develop and implement a regional adaptation of a one-week training course based on the manual “Researching violence against women-A practical guide for researchers and activists”. The course addresses the conduct of quantitative and qualitative research and the use of research findings for advocacy and programme development. Hide

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. Hide

WHO is developing an information pack summarizing the evidence for different forms of violence (e.g. intimate partner violence, sexual violence, trafficking, female genital mutilation). Hide

The international partnership "Together for Girls", to which WHO is a member, conducts national surveys to document sexual violence in a number of countries, promotes evidence-based programming to address sexual violence and has developed a strategy to increase global advocacy and public awareness. WHO contributes through technical guidance on survey development and implementation and capacity building as a follow-up of the surveys. Two research papers were published in 2011 from the WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence database, one showing the increased risk of suicide attempts among women who experienced intimate partner violence, and the other showing the risk factors for intimate partner violence across 15 sites. The WHO multi-country study database continues to be analyzed, providing evidence of the risk factors and health effects of violence against women. Hide

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. Hide