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“The training had a lot of impact on my life because I [now] have knowledge about the misdeeds of excision [cutting] and child marriage. I'm pregnant and if I have a girl I will not make her go through this practice”, said Fatoumata N.*, a peer educator in Mali. She was speaking about the harmful traditional practice of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), which is inflicted on 89 per cent of women and girls in Mali, according to the World Health Organization. FGM/C has devastating health ramifications for women and girls, including pain, bleeding, permanent disability and even death. This harmful traditional practice is not yet banned in Mali.
The UN Trust Fund is supporting the Malian organization AMSOPT to change social norms and provide access to medical and psychosocial services for survivors of FGM/C. The project’s awareness-raising efforts in the Kayes region, which has the highest rates of FGM/C in the country, have already led two villages to publicly renounce the harmful traditional practice as well as child marriage, and six others are in the process of doing the same. The two villages held public assemblies bringing together counselors, women, youth and village leaders to agree on the abandonment of FGM/C, and created a committee to ensure the application of the decision
*Name has been changed to protect the privacy of the individual.
To enhance global coordination and advocacy around school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV), UNESCO continues to co-chair the Global Partners Working Group on SRGBV with the UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI). There are now over 40 organizations represented in this group which convenes routine gatherings to exchange technical knowledge and resources and plan joint action including at global meetings, events and advocacy platforms, such as the 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-Based Violence).
Knowledge and advocacy products produced include the policy paper, Let’s Decide How to Measure School Violence (2017), developed by UNGEI, UNESCO and the Global Education Monitoring Report Team.
The UNESCO, UN Women and UNFPA Joint Programme on Empowering Adolescent Girls and Young Women through Education in Tanzania supported the Ministry of Health Community Development, Elderly, Women and Children to establish Violence against women and children (VAWC) protection committee guidelines. This will support advocacy activities on girl child protection together with the Assessment of the Legal and Regulatory Framework on Girls’ Education led by UNESCO.
In Tanzania, with support from the UNESCO Malala Fund for Girls’ Right to Education, 2,500 girls were engaged in safe spaces/youth clubs in 40 secondary schools. Safe space members are encouraged to be role models that should be emulated by other students, and to be agents of their own transformation. 120 teachers and 620 students were trained on how to manage Safe Spaces using tools developed by UNESCO (Guidelines for Creating Safe Spaces, Safe Space Guideline for facilitators and Handbook and Resource book). To ensure ownership, for subsequent trainings, teachers are trained as trainers to impart to students and other teachers knowledge and skills. 82 teachers from the 20 project schools were also trained on gender responsive pedagogy, human rights education and anti-bullying as well as sexual and reproductive health education. 200 teachers from those schools trained in those concepts by their fellow teachers and 1,050 students were reached. This activity has resulted in the districts and teachers’ adoption of systems to create a bullying and discrimination free environment in their schools and improving teaching by taking into consideration the gender dimension.
School-related gender based violence in Samoa : In creating opportunities for youth for civic engagement, UNESCO supported youth-led actions by young students of the School of Media and Journalism, National University of Samoa to raise awareness of the public about school-related gender based violence (SRGBV) in 2017. The intervention included capacity building workshops for media students to understand the nature, causes and impacts of SRGBV and ethical reporting, who later led the production of a media series to address the issue of SRGBV. The activity allowed students to firstly understand the issue of violence in school and discuss the issue from their perspective and how it manifests in their learning context. Students later developed their own course of actions. Communication materials including posters, documentaries, radio broadcast and journal articles were produced by the team of students with technical assistance of UNESCO and their lecturers. In the Arab region, Beirut office organized a three days training workshop targeting young people to promote gender equality. The workshop shared good practices and lessons learnt from advocacy campaigns in preventing Gender Based Violence (GBV) and sought a way to build capacity of youth advocates/ campaigners in this area.
Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Media (GSIM): UNESCO continues to encourage media organisations to adopt self-regulatory measures and internal mechanism, and develop standards in media coverage on the basis of such resources. The Organisation will accompany and build their capacity to portray non-stereotyped images of both women and men, avoid sexist language, content and advertising, as well as overall content that may lead to hatred and gender-based violence. UNESCO will also encourage the media to provide information on complaints procedures concerning media content which the public may consider offensive or contrary to gender equality.
For example, a database online has been developed to ensure a wider representation of female experts in Arabic &French and one in South East Asia. The GSIMs once implemented into media organizations strengthen gender equality both in workplace operations and in content.
A network of field ethics focal points has been created to receive and escalate complaints related to sexual exploitation and abuse. Trainings have been conducted for focal points on ethics procedures and the handling of these complaints, as well as on Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) and FAO's PSEA procedures.
Field research and analysis by country research teams in China, India, Indonesia for the research project “When and Why Do States Respond to Women's Claims? Understanding Gender-Egalitarian Policy Change in Asia” (2013-2016; final publications 2018).
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BB128/(httpProjects)/FFDCCF9EE4F2F9C6C1257BEF004FB03E?OpenDocument
In Honduras, OHCHR organised several conference and meetings addressing challenges in combatting VAW, including sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the promotion of the work of women’s networks. It also organised information campaigns on gender based violence and women human rights defenders.
In Haiti, OHCHR funds helped for the development and production of communication tools (audio-visual)/ messages to build resilience and prevent natural disasters for groups and populations at risk with a gender approach.
In Liberia, during the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, OHCHR and the UNCT provided support for the organisation of a conference on “Consolidating National Efforts against FGM’, with the participation of government officials, traditional and community leaders and other stakeholders.
In 2017, UNDP launched the “Ending Gender-based Violence (GBV) and Achieving the SDGs” global project. This project aims to take violence prevention to scale by bringing new partners, strategies and sources of financing to the table. Over three years, it will: design, test and evaluate initiatives that will reduce GBV in select pilot sites; and develop new knowledge, skills and tools to reduce GBV in other contexts. Pilots will integrate GBV into broader UNDP sectoral programming (such as environment and livelihoods) and/or will focus around the principle of leaving no one behind. All pilots will be implemented at the local level, but their lessons will be global. The project will translate evidence from the pilots into policy and advocacy tools, along with instruments such as new financing modalities.
ESCWA, in partnership with the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at the Lebanese American University and UNFPA, organized a youth arts competition for the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence 2017. The competition received over 75 submissions of artwork from youth in the Arab region and the awards event involved a presentation on engaging with visual arts as a means to respond to gender sensitive legal reform.
ESCWA, in partnership with UN Women, produced a brochure targeting policy makers on estimating the economic costs of violence against women and a created a series of eight infographics conveying key messages on the impact of violence against women in the Arab region and responses by ESCWA Member States.
ESCWA facilitates a quarterly gender discussion series, open to all members of the community. The following topics have been addressed: Child marriage in the Arab region; Prioritizing women, peace and security on the Arab agenda; Estimating the cost of violence against women in the Arab region; and the Arab position on gender equality.
ESCWA, in partnership with UNFPA, screened the film ‘Nour’ (2017) about a fifteen-year-old girl from a Lebanese village who is forced to marry a much older man. In response to the film, audience members remarked that activists, government official and NGOs must strategize how to confront child marriage once it happens, in addition to promoting legal reform.
ESCWA, in partnership with the Asfari Institute on Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University of Beirut, launched the “Lazim Campaign” during the weeks leading up to International Women’s Day 2018. Through the Lazim Campaign, prominent women throughout the Arab region shared their hopes for change in 2018, including criminalizing violence against women and developing gender-sensitive legislation.
UNODC promotes the Blue Hearth campaign, a global awareness raising initiative to fight human trafficking and its impact on society.
UNODC is implementing the Education for Justice Initiative and the Doha Declaration. In this framework, UNODC works to raise awareness on trafficking in persons though education, working closely with youth and academics to look into key concepts of trafficking and how this affects in particular women and girls, and how education can contribute to crime prevention and promotion of legality and justice.
Further, under the Global eLearning Programme, UNODC supports Member States through the delivery of courses across the world designed to address crime prevention challenges; on human rights, gender issues in cases of child sexual exploitation, alternatives to imprisonment for women offenders and the Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence; in line with international standards and norms.
In Viet Nam, UNODC supports awareness-raising campaigns on gender-based violence, documenting gender-based violence cases, providing aid services to victims and developing evidence-based data for policy advocacy purposes.
One of OCHA’s 7 priority commitments on gender is to promote gender-responsive Humanitarian Programme Cycle processes. It ensures the systematic inclusion of SGBV programming through the mandatory use of the Gender Marker in funded initiatives, and in reports on how gender and SGBV were addressed during project implementation. As an example, the CERF project application and reporting templates require sex- and age disaggregated data. The application template also includes the IASC Gender Marker which is then recorded in the CERF’s Grant Management System Database for tracking and analysis purpose.
In addition, information and knowledge on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls have been disseminated through OCHA’s various advocacy platforms such as the corporate website, social media accounts, content websites (such as Medium, Exposure and YouTube) and email. OCHA has updated and edited two “OCHA on Message” products on Gender in Humanitarian Action and Sexual and Gender-based Violence. “OCHA on Message” are reference products that enables staff to communicate OCHA’s position on key issues. OCHA has also delivered remarks and statements containing messaging on gender and SGBV for the Commission on the Status of Women, the 2017 Global Humanitarian Policy Forum, the Center for Global Development and the Royal Institute of International Affairs and as well as briefings to the Security Council, among others.. For International Women’s Day, OCHA launched a successful social media campaign with its “Messengers of Humanity” community around their “Female Humanitarian Heroes” highlighting the professional achievements of women working in humanitarian affairs.
In August, OCHA’s annual World Humanitarian Day campaign centered around the hashtag #NotATarget and advocated for the protection of civilians in armed conflict. The campaign included a strong focus on sexual violence in conflicts, and what can be done to empower and support survivors. As part of a unique collaboration with Facebook, OCHA launched a brand-new Live filter, allowing users to step into the shoes of people affected by conflict as they read real stories from civilians trapped in conflict. The filter included a series of stories by women and girls to highlight the unique challenges they experience in crisis. As part of the campaign, SCB collaborated with UNFPA on a blogpost “Dispelling five myths about sexual violence in emergencies” which was published on OCHA’s Medium platform.
OCHA also supports the International Day to end violence against women and the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence. In 2017, OCHA launched a digital campaign, which included an updated Facebook Live filter from World Humanitarian Day that exclusively featured stories of survival from women and girls affected by conflict. The Emergency Relief Coordinator and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, as well as staff members from OCHA’s field offices, participated in the campaign by recording videos, where they shared the real stories of women trapped in conflict.
Based on the UN framework for the prevention of violence against women, WHO, with UN Women, developed and is finalising an 8-page policy-maker friendly, infographic brochure to package the evidence about risk and protective factors , what works for prevention categorised into 7 prevention strategies., and how to scale up proven interventions This brochure packages simple key messages about the evidence on prevention in a user friendly way.