Mar 2009 - Sept 2009

OHCHR in Guatemala supported the Gender Unit of the Police to strengthen the abilities of law enforcement personnel to address violence against women. OHCHR country offices continued capacity-building for the monitoring and investigation of cases of violence against women. OHCHR Uganda (Lira) organized on 28 May 2009 a training on human rights and gender-based violence for members of the Unit Disciplinary Committee (the UDC is the lowest court in the hierarchy of the administration of justice in the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF)).

OHCHR participated in Northern Uganda and Karamoja in the IASC GBV Sub cluster (Protection), where the IASC clusters were beginning to hand over their work to the Government. In this context, OHCHR Kitgum and Gulu participated in the drafting of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for programmes targeting Gender Based Violence in August 2009.

UNESCO’s Regional Office in Santiago was involved in the development of the baseline assessment conducted in Chile as part of the UN joint programming pilot initiative.

UNESCO is involved in several research projects related to violence against women as a member of UNAIDS, including a research project to consolidate existing evidence from the peer-reviewed literature on the intersections between gender-based violence and AIDS epidemic (led by UNFPA in cooperation with the Harvard School of Public Health); and a research project, led by WHO, which focuses on the relation between HIV and intimate partner violence, as well as sexual violence against women.

With the aim to support the Nigerian National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP), and the National Monitoring Centre on Trafficking in Persons (NMC), UNICRI adapted the Italian National Anti-mafia Bureau (DNA) database – SIDDA 2000 –to the Nigerian legal framework and local context of the country. Technical staff and users of database of NAPTIP were trained on the software. Participants included staff from NAPTIP HQs and 6 Zonal Offices.

UN-HABITAT also published the “Global Assessment on Women's safety.” This assessment was completed in collaboration with the Huairou Commission, Women in Cities International and Red Mujer y Habitat, with a review of tools and strategies promoting women’s safety at the global, regional, national and local levels. This has resulted in the creation of a database of close to 200 institutions, local authorities and grassroots initiatives working on women’s safety.

UN-HABITAT published “Women’s Safety Audits: What Works and Where?” which provides an international comparative assessment of existing safety audits. Results are intended to influence the development of a set of guidelines for local authorities to refer to, when considering the use of the women’s safety audit tool. This report examines best practices, local adaptations, positive and negative outcomes and suggestions for future use of the women’s safety audit tool based on a review of the literature as well as surveys and interviews with organizations around the world that have used the tool.

In Romania, UNFPA and the National Agency for Family Protection (NAFP) assisted the East European Institute for Reproductive Health (EEIRH) to develop centralized data collection – the Integrated Information System (IIS) - which allows confidential access to gender-based violence services for survivors.

Work continued on the Gender Observatory, coordinated by ECLAC in collaboration with INSTRAW, PAHO, UNDP, UNIFEM and UNFPA together with the technical assistance of the Spanish Agency for International Co-operation (AECID) and the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB).

ECLAC contributed to the proposal on indicators on violence against women which was put forward in the report of the Friends of the Chair to the United Nations Statistical Commission and adopted as an interim set of indicators at the Commission’s 40th session.