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Two WHO publications on violence against women have been released. Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence: taking action and generating evidence provides a framework for developing policies and programmes for the prevention of intimate partner and sexual violence. It emphasizes the importance of evaluating prevention initiatives in order to improve their effectiveness, and expand the global evidence base in this area. Addressing violence against women and HIV/AIDS: what works? summarizes existing evidence on the intersections between violence against women and HIV/AIDS and interventions to address them. It builds on a review of these interventions and summarizes the presentations, discussions and recommendations from an expert consultation hosted by WHO and UNAIDS. The report provides policy and programmatic recommendations for national and international HIV/AIDS programmes and for future programme development, evaluation and research efforts.WHO, with UNFPA and UNICEF, held a meeting in Kenya to develop a global strategy to eliminate the medicalization of female genital mutilation.In June 2010, a joint policy statement on stopping medical service providers from performing female genital mutilation was issued by the WHO, on behalf of a group of UN agencies. Hide

WHO is developing Guidelines for the health sector response to intimate partner and sexual violence. Hide

WHO/PAHO organized a workshop on the prevention of intimate partner violence and sexual violence with participants from four Latin American countries, aimed at introducing concepts of primary prevention, reviewing the evidence and encouraging development of country prevention initiatives. Hide

WHO Regional Office for the Americas (AMRO)/ Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are working on a comparative analysis of existing population-based survey data on violence against women from 13 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hide

A WHO intervention study to identify and respond to women suffering violence during antenatal care has started in 2 countries in sub Saharan Africa. Hide

Under the project “Violence against women and HIV/AIDS: what works?” WHO, with UNAIDS, is reviewing the evidence base for interventions to address violence against women and HIV/AIDS. WHO organized a meeting of programmatic interventions to address these intersections, with a focus on intimate partner and sexual violence and violence against sex workers. Hide

The WHO Global Health Cluster tools and guidance integrate prevention of and response to sexual violence as part of the minimum set of actions to be undertaken by the health sector in humanitarian settings. Training on these tools and guidance is ongoing at global, regional, nation and sub-national levels and technical support is provided to country level humanitarian health clusters. WHO with UNHCR and UNFPA, launched an e-learning programme on the clinical management of rape in emergencies settings. Hide

WHO held the Fourth Milestones Meeting of the Global Campaign for Violence Prevention in September 2009, focusing on strengthening violence prevention. Hide

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. Hide

WHO and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) are working on new estimates of prevalence and health risk of intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence and child sexual abuse for the Global Burden of Disease Study. Hide