United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

As part of its triple mandate, UN Women has continued to support the development of global normative standards and the full implementation by Member States to of the existing international and regional legal and policy framework on ending violence against women and girls, including the CEDAW Convention and other international and regional human rights treaties, and relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, through its operational functions and UN system coordination and broader convening role on EVAWG.  

Specific examples of UN Women’s work include:

• Drafted UN Secretary-General reports on:
  • Eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls (A/79/500) – 2022, 2024
  • Ending female genital mutilation (A/79/514) -2022, 2024
  • Trafficking in women and girls (A/79/322) - – 2022, 2024
• Provided technical support for a UN General Assembly resolution on survivors’ access to justice, strengthening international commitments.
• Supported CSW67, ensuring technology-facilitated GBV (TF GBV) was recognized as a critical emerging issue.
• In 2024, UN Women co-developed new Human Rights Council resolutions on domestic violence (A/HRC/53/L.5/REV.1) and TF GBV (A/HRC/56/L.15), ensuring international recognition of digital violence against women.
• Worked closely with the EDVAW Platform (7 UN entities) to address the backlash against women’s rights, strengthen legal frameworks, and combat new forms of violence exacerbated by climate change and digitalization.
• UN Women Americas and Caribbean RO works with the Follow-up Mechanism of the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI) to develop tools and resources to strengthen the implementation of the Belém do Pará Convention in the region.
  • In the framework of the Programme ACT, UN Women ACRO is working with the MESECVI to develop the Inter-American Model Law on TFVAWG
• UN Women Americas and Caribbean RO worked with the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) to establish international standards for investigating threats against human rights defenders in the framework of the Esperanza Protocol.
• UN Women Americas and Caribbean RO works with the Gender Specialized Network of the Ibero-American Association of Public Ministries (REG-AIAMP) to develop regional frameworks for the investigations of violence against women. In the past years, the REG-AIMP adopted, with the support of UN Women ACRO, the following:
  • Working Methodology for the Adaptation Process of the Latin American Model Protocol for the Investigation of Gender-Related Violent Deaths of Women (Femicide/Feminicide) by the United Nations
  • Protocol for the Investigation and Litigation of Cases of Violent Deaths of Women (Femicide)
  • Organized or Complex Crime and Violence Against Women: Proposed Guidelines for the Public Prosecutors' Offices / Prosecutors General Members of the AIAMPUN Women supported ASEAN’s implementation of the Regional Plan of Action on EVAWG and led development of the ASEAN Guidelines for Developing National SOPs for a Coordinated Response to VAWG, aligning with international human rights norms.

Gathering data and evidence on VAWG is vital for gaining insight into the scope, nature, severity and frequency of the different forms of violence experienced by women globally. This data can also help to shed light on who is at highest risk, identify perpetrators, locate hotspots, and reveal the myriad consequences of this violence for individuals, families, communities and societies. This evidence also helps to understand whether survivors can access existing support services. To get a full picture, UN Women supports the production of quality data from different sources to track progress against the SDGs, including prevalence survey data, administrative data, policy data, qualitative data and innovative methods and sources such as big data and remote data collection. In 2022 and 2023, UN Women supported institutions, governments, CSOs and academics to analyse, use and disseminate high-quality statistics and evidence on VAWG by working to increase capacities for the production of quality, comparable prevalence data on VAWG to track SDG progress; strengthen knowledge and data on femicides to support prevention and response interventions; increase the capacities of institutions to collect, analyse, use and disseminate high-quality administrative data on VAWG; and advance innovations to fill critical data gaps on VAWG. UN Women’s work on data and research also includes managing a comprehensive repository on government actions to address VAWG: the Global Database on Violence against Women. One of UN Women’s most popular portals, it receives more than half a million visitors a year.

Specific examples of UN Women’s work include:

Strengthened national statistical offices in 21 countries.

• Developed the Statistical Framework for Measuring Femicide with UNODC.
• Published the Global Technical Guidance for Administrative Data on VAWG to standardize reporting.
• UN Women America's & Caribbean Regional Office collected data using behavioural insights to develop evidence-based strategies to address TFVAW.
• UN Women Multi country office– Caribbean supported the increased availability of globally comparative VAWG prevalence data in the Caribbean through the first round of national prevalence surveys in Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname.
• UN Women MCO – Caribbean published the first studies on the Economic Costs of Violence Against Women and Girls in the Caribbean, in Grenada and Jamaica, and completed an additional ECOVAWG Study in Guyana.
• Research outputs included a costing study on IPV, big data analysis on VAW during crises (in the Pacific) and during COVID, pioneering studies on VAW in politics, violence against LGBTIQ+ people and measuring social norm change in Nepal. UN Women also supports national efforts to improve administrative data systems and is piloting the UN-endorsed statistical framework on femicide.