Search

UNFPA and UN Women launched and rolled out the Joint Global Programme on Essential Services for Women and Girls subject to Violence. This Joint Programme is aimed at responding to the critical gaps and challenges that limit expanded access to quality multi-sectoral services for all women and girls victims/survivors of violence. With a particular focus on developing countries, the programme aims to achieve greater access for all women and girls who have experienced violence to a set of essential quality and coordinated multi-sectoral services. Under this initiative, a global experts meeting was convened, also in collaboration with WHO, in Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2013 to reach an agreement on the set of essential health services that are required to be provided to women and girls vulnerable to or that have been subjected to violence. Hide

WHO launched a programming tool: “16 ideas for addressing violence against women in the context of the HIV epidemic” during the16 days of activism campaign against gender-based violence which provides programme managers with effective interventions to prevent and respond to violence against women. Hide

UNHCR continued its work, in partnership with with civil society, to ensure a holistic response for survivors of SGBV, including through establishment of safe spaces in centres in Lebanon, which are not specifically created for services provision to SGBV survivors, in order to avoid stigmatization of SGBV survivors seeking support; establishment of “centres d’écoute” for counselling services to SGBV survivors in Mali; establishment of family counselling mechanisms and community protection committees in Yemen to address domestic violence among Somali refugees; training in Burkina Faso for its staff and partners working with camp-based and urban refugees resulting in revisions to the SOP on SGBV in light of the changing situation in the Malian crisis. Hide

OHCHR in collaboration with WHO, UNICEF, and UNFPA has developed a Technical Guidance on the application of a human rights-based approach to implementation of policies and programmes for the reduction of preventable maternal mortality and morbidity in a variety of contexts and intends to pilot it also in partnership with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. Hide

The UN Trust Fund on EVAW-funded joint programme ‘Multi-Sectoral Gender Based Violence Response at the District Level in Nepal’, the first UN joint programming initiative to address VAW in Nepal, was completed in 2013 and the evaluation concluded that the programme has helped create a forum for different stakeholders to address VAW collectively. Hide

WHO launched Clinical and policy guidelines for the health sector: Responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women in June 2013. These guidelines are based on systematic reviews of all available evidence assessed by a group of experts. The guidelines have been widely disseminated through workshops, in partnership with UNFPA in Asia Pacific, as well as in 6 countries in West Africa and in China, Vietnam and with Syrian Ob/GYNs in Lebanon. Hide

In 2013, the UN Trust Fund received 2,410 applications from 145 countries, the majority of them from civil society organizations, with total funding requests of over $1.1 billion. In its 17th grant cycle, the UN Trust Fund continued engaging its inter-agency Programme Advisory Committee, at the global level, and sub-regional programme advisory committees and through its competitive process, awarded $8 million for 17 grants, covering 18 countries and territories. Sixteen civil society organizations and the Government of Antigua and Barbuda received grants that are expected to reach 2.3 million beneficiaries by 2017. In line with the UN Trust Fund’s Thematic Window on preventing and addressing violence against adolescent girls, five of these grants will focus on their specific needs.UN Trust Fund programmes are mobilizing communities in order to change beliefs, attitudes and practices that perpetuate and normalize violence. These initiatives are opening up safe spaces for girls in which they can thrive and develop their potential. They are promoting strategies to end impunity for gender-based violence in conflict situations, including by gathering evidence, strengthening prosecution systems and establishing non-judicial, truth-telling mechanisms. Through the Trust Fund’s support, grantees have made great advances in enabling the implementation of legislation that addresses all forms of violence against women and girls. In 2013 alone, the Trust Fund supported programmes that reached more than 3 million women, men, girls and boys around the world, including more than 30,000 survivors of violence. The work of the Trust Fund remains vital in closing the gap between promises and action.Given the promising results of community-based approaches and the central role of social mobilization to enact change, in the 18th grant cycle the UN Trust Fund will specifically and strategically invest in grass-roots women’s organizations and youth-led organizations, in addition to well-established civil society organizations, Governments and United Nations country teams. Programmes that engage groups facing discrimination and exclusion, such as internally displaced persons, refugees, women and girls living in conflict, post-conflict and transitional settings as well as women with disabilities, will also receive special consideration. Hide

During the reporting period, OHCHR, in cooperation with UN Women, convened three validation workshops for the finalization of the Model Protocol for the investigation of femicide in Latin America. The tool aims at strengthening capacities to take gender aspects into account in analyzing the crime scenes and in identifying necessary expert evidence. The Model of Protocol was also presented to the Conference of State Parties to Inter-American Convention on Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention) and to the General Assembly of the Ibero-American Association of Public Prosecutors (AIAMPO). The Human Rights Council, at its June 2013 session, adopted resolution 23/25 which recognized the Model Protocol as a good and promising practice (OP 19). Hide

In 2013, the El Salvador Protocol for the Investigation of Feminicide which was developed with the support of OHCHR was adopted by the General Prosecutor Office and has been incorporated into the regular training curriculum of Salvadorian prosecutors. OHCHR organized an expert meeting on victims and witness protection in May 2013 to contribute to the development of a related tool, with a special focus on the protection of victims of sexual and gender-based violence. Hide

UNDP supported the provision and improvement of multi-sectoral services through the establishment of referral systems in Somalia; a UN Trust Fund to End VAW project as well as development of guidelines and training in Serbia; increased access to justice for survivors in Sierra-Leone as well as in Somalia with the expansion of mobile courts to remote areas; enhanced legal aid in LAC, Montenegro, Pakistan, Somalia, and Sri Lanka; capacity development of shelters in Albania; development of minimum standards for SOS hotline services provision and capacity development of service providers in Serbia, as well as support to perpetrators programmes; support to networks of women living with HIV in Cambodia to highlight issues such as forced abortions and sterilizations; a Rapid Assessment of Institutional Readiness to Deliver GBV/HIV Services; and counselling in Madagascar. In India, following the gang rape case in December 2012, UNDP provided technical assistance to the Government to set up a model One Stop Crisis Centre in Delhi and provided global best practices to the Justice Mehra Committee on the issue. Hide