United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

In Jordan, through the support of the Governments of Norway, UN Women - in partnership with UNFPA and UNICEF - implements the second phase of the joint project “Hemayati: Promoting Women and Girls’ Health and Well-being”. The project is also implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD), Ministry of Health (MoH) and partner NGOs including the Jordanian Women Union and Un Ponte Per (UPP). The project’s overall aim is to increase sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) survivors’ access to comprehensive lifesaving protection services, including health, psychosocial and legal services. Building on a successful first phase (2013-2014), the second phase of the project is being implemented in five governorates of Jordan (Amman, Irbid, Zarqa, Mafraq and Maan) benefiting from the expertise of all participating UN agencies and partners. The objective is to bring all the services necessary for women and girls who have experienced violence in a one-stop shop to ensure that they receive quality, survivor-centered support when they need it most.

UN Women developed costing frameworks that provide the foundation for understanding the resources needed for comprehensive support services for survivors of violence. These frameworks were developed in Lao PDR, Indonesia and Timor-Leste.

UN Women Multi-Country Office in Barbados has provided support to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to develop and adopt a model for conducting national prevalence surveys on violence against women in the region. The model is currently being piloted in Jamaica, where prevalence data are expected to be available in late 2016-early 2017, and will be later implemented in other countries in the region. In Kazakhstan, UN Women supported the Committee of Statistics to conduct the first specialized national survey on the prevalence of domestic violence, through provision of expert's support to conduct a series of trainings for implementing the survey.

In Jordan, UN Women implemented a program to enhance Syrian Women’s Empowerment in Camp Settings. Within the framework of the Jordan Response Plan to the Syria Crisis 2016-18, UN Women operates safe spaces for Syrian women in Za’atari refugee camp. UN Women has been operating in Za’atari camp since early 2013 and in these settings provides a range of services. Among other services, UN Women provides awareness raising sessions on domestic violence and early marriage.

The programme of work to develop the Essential Services Package has been a partnership between UN Women, UNFPA, WHO, UNDP and UNODC.  The 5 modules comprising the package, identify the essential services to be provided by the health, social services, police and justice sectors as well as guidelines for the coordination of Essential Services and the governance of coordination processes and mechanisms. Service delivery guidelines for the core elements of each essential service have also been identified to ensure the delivery of high quality services, particularly for low and middle income countries for women and girls experiencing violence. This is being supported by the development of other tools including an implementation manual and a monitoring and evaluation framework for the implementation of the guidelines in different contexts.  Negotiations are underway for the formalization of a UN Joint Global Programme on Essential Services for Women and Girls Subject to Violence by the five agencies for Phase II of the work to implement the guidelines in up to ten countries.

In Viet Nam in 2015, UN Women provided technical support to the Ministry of Education and Training to develop a circular that will provide guidance to schools nationwide to introduce counseling services to help students deal with issues such as school-related gender based violence (SRGBV) and difficulties in gender relations. This is in response to growing evidence that SRGBV, especially cyber harassment has become common and increasingly complicated recently. The circular is currently being reviewed by the Government and is expected to be approved by the Prime Minister in August 2016.

UN Women participates as observer in the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators, and it has influenced the selection and definition of EVAW related SDG target indicators, more specifically target 5.2 indicators. It has led and worked with other UN agencies to develop the metadata for the two indicators to monitor progress of this target.  UN Women also convened a meeting with other UN agencies working on VAW data and it is coordinating the development of a UN global joint programme to build sustained national capacities to implement VAW prevalence surveys in line with international standards and SDG monitoring requirements.  This work is part of the Flagship Programme Initiative “Better production and use of gender statistics for evidence-based localization of the SDGs”.

With the Sustainable Development Agenda committed to ending all forms of violence against women and girls, UN Women has led an initiative involving six other UN entities to create the Framework to Underpin Action to Prevent Violence against Women. It maps evidence-based and emerging practices in preventing violence, with a focus on addressing root causes, risk and protective factors.

The Global Study on resolution 1325 is a review of 15 years of effort on the part of Member States, Civil Society, UN agencies and the international community to implement this groundbreaking resolution and move the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda forward. The Study was led by independent expert Radhika Coomaraswamy, and was developed based on a series of regional consultations with Civil Society Organizations as well as in-depth research commissioned by leading experts in the WPS field. The Study represents the most comprehensive and updated compilation of the growing evidence that women’s empowerment contributes to the success of peace talks and the achievement of sustainable peace, accelerates economic recovery, strengthens our peace operations, improves our humanitarian assistance, and can help counter violent extremism. According to the Global Study, the main reason for the gap between the robustness of our normative frameworks and the weakness of our implementation on the ground is lack of political will, accountability and resources, and institutional and attittudinal barriers. In the last 15 years, there have been long lists of recommendations but few sticks and carrots to induce compliance, and the Global Study provides key findings and concrete recommendations for implementing 1325, and subsequent WPS resolutions, across a number of areas.

In Afghanistan, in partnership with Civil Society Organizations and the Government, UN Women, supports 11 Women Protection Centers (WPCs) and 5 Family Guidance Centers (FGCs) in provinces of Bamiyan, Baghlan, Daikundi, Jawzjan, Kabul, Kandahar, Kunar, Laghman, Nangarhar, Parwan, Samangan and Takhar. The WPCs provided 24-hour safe refuge, legal aid, health care, education (basic literacy), vocational training, psychosocial services and support for reunification with their families, while the FGCs provided mediation, family counselling, and referral to WPCs and legal aid services. The WPCs and FGCs support more than 2,500 VAW survivors annually.