Mar 2009 - Sept 2009

The Women’s Refugee Commission and UNHCR hosted a workshop for NGOs and UN agencies on the guidance produced by the IASC Task Force on Safe Access to Alternative Fuel and Firewood. The guidance has also been disseminated to field operations where access to firewood is a protection concern for women and girls.

In Liberia, UNHCR, the government and other partners, was involved in drafting the Sexual Assault and Abuse Prosecution Handbook for the Criminal Court in Monrovia, which has concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute sexual and gender-based violence cases throughout the country. UNHCR also assisted with the establishment of a Sex Crimes Unit at the Ministry of Justice and sponsored a training for its staff and prosecutors in Liberia.

In Paraguay, UNFPA supported the institutional strengthening of the Gender Unit of the Human Rights Division of the Supreme Court, which is responsible for the monitoring of the violence against women policy. In Rwanda, WFP supported the establishment of two Gender Desks: one in the National Police and one in the Ministry of Defence. The primary task of these units is to assist Concerned National Institutions and other stakeholders to address issues related to gender-based violence.

UNHCR published a Guidance Note on Refugee Claims relating to Female Genital Mutilation. The note affirms that Female Genital Mutilation is a form of gender-based persecution and can constitute grounds for asylum according to the 1951 Refugee Convention. The guidance will be used by states and UNHCR to facilitate asylum.

UNECE conducted a workshop on measuring violence against women for users and producers of statistics in the Kyrgyz Republic. The workshop included participants from the national statistical system, crisis centres and gender machineries.

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, continued to support capacity development and programming, including with regard to: identification of linkages between violence against women and HIV/AIDS by Caribbean National AIDS Councils; the work of an Albanian network of non-governmental organizations to better coordinate responses to domestic violence with municipal authorities; training on gender and trafficking for teachers and adolescents in Thailand; partnership with a National Commission in Mexico to provide financial and technical resources to indigenous women’s organizations and networks addressing

OHCHR arranged trainings of media professionals with regard to gender-based violence. Within the framework of the “Defending and Protecting Women’s Human Rights in Mexico” project, OHCHR organised in Mexico a training programme for journalists on “Human Rights and the Violence against Women in the Media” from 18 to 20 February 2009. In Uganda, OHCHR Teso Region (Soroti) organized a training of media professionals on how to conduct respectful interviews of victims/survivors of gender-based violence and their role to educate communities on gender-based violence as a serious human rights issue.

In Nigeria, UNICRI provided the NGO Coalition against Human Trafficking training on “Providing Services to and Case Management of Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings in Nigeria”.

In September 2009, the NGO “Centre for the Protection of Constitutional Rights”, and UNHCR partner in Georgia, conducted 16 training sessions on the Georgian Law on Domestic Violence, in which 332 police officers and social workers were trained. UNRWA Syria Field Office trained midwifes in detecting women victims of violence.

As part of a One-UN project on violence against women, UNODC held a training course in Viet Nam to build the capacity of law enforcement officers to effectively deal with cases of domestic violence. This first train-the-trainers session focused on gender equality principles, common characteristics of domestic violence and best practices in dealing with victims, witnesses and perpetrators.