Search
ESCWA has implemented a project to build the capacities of parliamentarians from selected Arab countries and other stakeholders in implementing UNSCR 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security. This project has resulted in the delivery of training workshops to foster the formulation of national action plans aiming at amending specific discriminative legislation to better protect women during armed conflicts, enacting new laws to facilitate women’s access to decision-making positions in peace process and endorsing financial implications by Governments to carry out action plans accordingly.
In 2015, ESCWA produced a background paper on the socioeconomic impact of wars on women and girls in the Arab region. The paper shows that Gender-Based Violence is one of the most relevant repercussions of wars on women and girls and proposes recommendations at the institutional and legal levels.
Through FAO’s community-based resilience building approach called “Caisses de Résilience”, women’s groups received support to strengthen their technical, financial and social capacities to engage in resilient livelihoods, reintegrate into society and rebuild their self-esteem by gaining increased skills, knowledge and economic self-reliance.
Since 2013 the International Training Centre of the ILO (ITCILO) has started to focus more specifically on gender-based violence at work, introducing thematic workshops on the topic in both editions of the ITCILO Gender Academy (2013 and 2015), a major global specialised event on gender equality in the world of work. The workshops provided both formal training and participatory awareness raising sessions such as Forum Theatre. During the years 2012-2015 ITCILO has also introduced half-day Forum Theatre sessions to sensitize ITCILO training participants and staff on GBV, in various regular training courses on gender equality.
Based on the lessons learned over these years, and teaming up with FairWear Foundation – which has extensive experience in combating VAW in the textile global supply chain – in 2015 ITCILO has produced a Training Resource Kit on Preventing and Addressing Gender-based Violence in Global Supply Chains, which offers information, case studies and other resources to inform, sensitize and build capacities among ILO constituents and various other public and private actors. The Resource Kit will be on-line in April 2016. A face-to-face course on “Addressing Gender-based Violence in the world of work” open to representatives of social partners, gender machineries and NGOs will also take place in Turin in September 2016.
As a member of the Team of Experts, OHCHR supported efforts to strengthen the capacity of national rule of law and justice actors to address impunity for conflict-related sexual violence.
In Belarus, in partnership with UNFPA, UNICEF and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, IOM provided tools and technical assistance to NGOs to improve national capacity to counteract and prevent domestic violence, especially against women and children. This project launched a Pilot Seminar on the relationship between domestic violence and trafficking in women and children. Counter-trafficking NGOs, judges, prosecutors, law-enforcement officials and representatives of the border troops of Belarus participated in this event. The seminar has brought the attention to and initiated a dialogue among the relevant actors on this topic. It established a forum for relevant parties to work together and improve various legal and support provisions for victims of trafficking and domestic violence. Overall, ten NGOs, 75 NGOs’ staff members, 45 law-enforcement officials and over 40 other specialists received training as part of this project. The project also referred at least 700 victims of domestic violence for specialized assistance.
In 2014, UNICEF collective provided timely emergency response such as food, water, shelter, latrines, health care and psychosocial support for millions of women and girls affected by conflict. In Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, Syria and Nigeria, UNICEF helped in protecting the dignity of women and girls in camps for the internally displaced people. In 2015, almost 10,000 children were released from armed forces or armed groups, with at least 70 per cent receiving reintegration assistance.
ILO's Better Work Programme has conducted trainings on sexual harassment in the garment sector factories targeting workers, supervisors and mid-level managers. The trainings have mainly been conducted in Jordan (more than 40 trainings in 2015 and 2016), Cambodia (more than 20 in 2015) and Vietnam. In Lesotho, a roundtable discussion was conducted with workers and managers, followed by training on prevention of sexual harassment. The Programme has also developed toolkits and guidelines to prevent and address sexual harassment in the factories for the different countries.
In the Central African Republic, IOM is working to prevent SGBV among internally-displaced and host populations. IOM is building capacity among National Police and Gendarmerie forces to respond adequately to SGBV case reports, in coordination with UN Civil Police / CIVPOL. In this effort, IOM is also advocating for the increased recruitment of female police officers. These efforts will provide police with the tools to use a survivor-centred approach, as well as educate them in relation to Central African legislation and international human rights law on rape as a war crime.