Enhanced Capacity of UN Entity in Relation to Violence Against Women

OHCHR supports the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, whose work during 2012 included: submission of a report on gender-related killings of women to the Human Rights Council in June 2012; submission of her report to the General Assembly on violence against women with disabilities; and official country missions to Italy, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Support was also provided to the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, whose work during 2012 included: submission of a report to the UN Human Rights Council on integrating a human rights-based approach into the prosecution of cases of human trafficking; her report to the General Assembly on the issue of trafficking in supply chains; country visits to the United Arab Emirates, Gabon and the Philippines; and an address to the UN Conference of the State Parties to the Convention on Transnational Organized Crime.OHCHR hosts the Working Group on Discrimination against women in law and in practice, which held four sessions and presented its first annual report at the 20th session of the Human Rights Council in June 2012. The Working Group conducted three country visits to Morocco, Moldova and Tunisia. OHCHR also submitted a study on violence against women and girls and disability to the same Human Rights Council session. Hide

UNRWA has provided over 600 training courses to staff, including on sexual abuse, psychosocial counselling, sex education, sexually transmitted diseases, reproductive health and early marriage. Hide

UNHCR held four regional workshops on sexual and gender-based violence, aimed at strengthening the capacity of UNHCR and partner staff in the field of prevention and response, as well as monitoring and evaluation. The workshops also included the 2011 “Action against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: An Updated Strategy” and will assist individual country operations to develop country-level strategies. UNHCR has also recently recruited four senior protection officers, being also responsible for developing multi-sectoral strategies on sexual gender-based violence at country level. Hide

UNAIDS presented an external mid-term review of UNAIDS Agenda for Accelerated Country Action for Women Girls and Gender Equality to its Programme Coordinating Board in December 2012. The review found UNAIDS has contributed to scaled up country-level action on violence and HIV but further work is required to strengthen the evidence base. Hide

UNICEF has led the development of a Prevention Framework to inform field level programming on how to increase the safety and security of women and children. UNICEF is also working to strengthen programme monitoring and evaluation of interventions to prevent and respond to violence against children. This includes global evaluations of UNICEF’s work in emergency and development contexts to address violence, as well as providing technical and financial support to an interagency action research project on the functioning and effectiveness of community-based child protection mechanisms. As part of a greater focus on programme monitoring across the Organisation, concerted efforts are being made to improve programme monitoring on violence against children globally, and focused support is being provided to countries in East and Southern Africa to improve monitoring and evaluation systems related to violence prevention and response in collaboration with governments. Hide

UNFPA’s partnership with UNICEF globally and in 12 country offices in co-chairing and implementing activities under the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme and Trust Fund on Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGM/C) and activities under the Trust Fund are ongoing. Hide

UNFPA developed and pilot-tested the Gender Marker system over 2011 in the country offices of Azerbaijan, Burundi, Indonesia and Turkey. The Gender Marker system will allow the Fund to track its investments on gender and will be mandatorily used by all UNFPA country offices from 2013.UNFPA continued to lead the Gender-based Violence cluster coordination efforts to address gender-based violence/violence against women in Haiti, and now in the Philippines and Pakistan in the aftermath of natural disasters. Hide

The UNFPA sub-regional strategy on Gender-based Violence for Latin America and the Caribbean region was released in September 2011. Hide

OHCHR continued supporting the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its causes and consequences: in supporting three country visits to Jordan (11-24 November 2011), Somalia (9 – 16 December 2011) and Italy (15-26 January 2012); in strengthening partnerships with other human rights mechanisms, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); and in convening an Expert Group Meeting on gender motivated killings of women. The Special Rapporteur also held a bilateral meeting with the CEDAW Committee with a view to strengthening partnerships between the two mandates and mutually benefit from their respective work. Hide

OHCHR raised awareness among its country offices on Security Council resolutions on Women, Peace and Security and on their relevance for their work. This included the production and dissemination of an information sheet; the organization of two-specific sessions during the annual meeting of heads of field presence and the OHCHR planning week respectively. Hide