Mar 2010 - Sept 2010

The UNDP Regional Center in the Arab States, in cooperation with UNIFEM, conducts in Egypt training of trainers and sensitization to gender-sensitive measurements for equitable service delivery. UNDP’s regional HIV programme conducted leadership trainings to women living with HIV from Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti and Saudi Arabia. A gender and HIV toolkit was also prepared on human rights and religious perspectives demanding equity, taking also a stand against all forms of violence against women.

In Sri Lanka, the Equal Access to Justice Project, supported by UNDP, has provided training to women and men working as ‘first respondents’, including welfare officers, crèche attendants, midwives and CBO officers, in order to support victims at village level. The programmes have been targeted in the estate (plantation) sector, where relatively high incidences of alcoholism contribute to high rates of GBV, and the former conflict affected areas, where they have been conducted in tandem with livelihood support projects.

In Morocco, UNDP is working with UNIFEM and UNICEF to strengthen family sections of civil status courts in the implementation of the new family code which provides for much greater rights for women in marriage, divorce and alimony issues, all of which are necessary steps towards guaranteeing violence-free environment for women. In Kosovo, UNDP supported the establishment of the Anti-Trafficking Secretariat in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. UNDP and MINUSTAH are supporting the Haitian National Police to set up special police groups for increasing surveillance in the camps.

In El Salvador, officials of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the Public Prosecutor Office and the Police participated in an expert seminar, organized by the OHCHR, on legal frameworks to protect women from violence, including femicide.

The World Bank’s first global study of urban violence, “Violence in the City” (2010), included analysis of gender based violence (GBV) in urban neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, Haiti; Dili, Timor-Leste; Nairobi, Kenya; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Fortaleza, Brazil. The study reported lifetime sexual violence victimization ranging from 08.% to over 20% in some neighborhoods, with over half of all incidents occurring in public spaces.

UN-HABITAT and Women in Cities International developed a background document on girls and urbanization for the publication “Because I am a Girl”, of the NGO, Plan.

ECLAC has pursued the coordination and execution of the interregional project “Enhancing capacities to eradicate violence against women through networking of local knowledge communities”, in coordination with the other Regional Commissions.

At the global level, UNDP is working with the Social Science Research Council and other research institutions around the world to establish the Global Center for Research on Gender and Crisis Prevention and Recovery (G-CPR). This initiative will strengthen research and capacity in the field of gender and security, including through the provision of grants to southern research institutions, with a view to informing policy and programming.

Global burden of disease: WHO and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are continuing work on new global and regional estimates for the prevalence of intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, child sexual abuse, and the health risks and consequences associated with these types of violence.

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, supported data collection toward the development of effective public policies in Guinea Bissau and Moldova, and supported women’s networks in Ecuador to monitor commitments to end violence against women through surveys.