Measures to Address Sexual Violence in Conflict Situations

In Sudan, OHCHR’s technical cooperation programme focused on sexual and gender-based violence, including awareness-raising workshops; the implementation of a workplan to combat violence against women through the Unit for Combating Violence against Women of the UNMIS; supporting activities of three Darfur state committees on this issue; and trainings for female police officers, as well as investigative officers of the Family and Child unit. OHCHR, through the Human Rights section of UNAMID, conducted a series of workshops on skill-building for medical doctors, prosecutors, lawyers and midwives, dealing with victims of rape, in El fasher and Nyala. A workshop on human rights and rape counselling was organized for male and female police officers in North Darfur, and for male police investigators in South Darfur. UNAMID Human Rights staff also organized a workshop for the Central Reserve Police in West Darfur on international human rights law and the importance of laws and regulations regarding sexual and gender-based violence in their daily work.

In Liberia, under the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) for Liberia 2008-2012, the WFP Country Office is midway through the first stage of a UN Joint Programme to reduce SBGV.

In 2009, OHCHR in Colombia, in coordination with the OHCHR’s Women ‘s Rights and Gender Unit, undertook several training sessions to strengthen the capacity of the Attorney General’s Office, as well as specialized NGOs, to prosecute crimes of sexual violence in the context of the armed conflict. The project foresees the elaboration of recommendations for a prosecution strategy.

UNFPA – via its Country Offices - was involved in implementing various components of Security Council resolutions 1325 and 1820 in humanitarian settings, including programming to address the needs of survivors of gender-based violence.

In Darfur, UNV volunteers mobilized a paralegal aid network comprised of attorneys, professors and speakers to volunteer their services. They provide seminars and training to internally displaced persons (IDPs), community members, women and men, youth, and traditional community leaders on gender-based violence, and how to best provide support to survivors and families. Volunteer attorneys also accompany UNDP on field missions with the Mobile Legal Aid Clinics to provide legal assistance to survivors.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, UNDP worked with local authorities and traditional leaders to set up systems to prevent domestic and sexual violence.

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, as part of UN Action, contributed to the organization of a high-level colloquium on conflict-related sexual violence and peace negotiations, which shared its conclusions at a United Kingdom-hosted Security Council Arria formula meeting related to the Secretary-General’s report on Security Council Resolution 1820. UNIFEM continued to support activities to improve government and community police responses to sexual and gender-based violence in Darfur (with UNAMID).

WHO chaired the Scientific Committee for the 2009 Sexual Violence Research Initiative Forum which brought together almost 200 researchers and others from 78 countries to address: prevention, health response, including mental health, HIV and sexual violence, and sexual violence in conflict.

UNESCO developed a project on school-related gender-based violence in six post conflict countries in Africa. This project is a follow up to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children.

The Gender Capacity Standby Roster (GenCap) Steering Committee held its annual planning and strategy meeting in October 2009. It decided to increase the number of deployments from 120 months in 2009 to 170 months in 2010 and to recruit more members to the GenCap roster. The IASC Gender Sub-Working Group (SWG) on Gender and Humanitarian Action, in collaboration with InterAction, developed a certificate-based online course on gender in humanitarian action. The target audience is humanitarian field workers, and prevention of gender-based violence in a key facet of the course.