Mar 2011 - Jan 2012

The international partnership "Together for Girls", to which WHO is a member, conducts national surveys to document sexual violence in a number of countries, promotes evidence-based programming to address sexual violence and has developed a strategy to increase global advocacy and public awareness. WHO contributes through technical guidance on survey development and implementation and capacity building as a follow-up of the surveys.

Following the Pilot/Pre-testing survey on violence against women, carried out within the work programme of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) during 2011, UNICRI, in partnership with IPSOS and HEUNI, is currenlty working on the FRA Violence Against Women Survey, involving 27 EU countries and 1 accessing country, Croatia. The survey will consist of 1,500 standardised interviews in each country concerning experiences of violence against women. This is the first survey carried out in the 28 countries.

With the assistance of UN Women, the national machinery for women (MASEF) and the National Statistical Office (ONS) in Mauritania launched the first national survey on the prevalence of violence against women (VAW). This survey will establish a baseline of accurate data that will allow the development of a policy on gender-based violence and provide stakeholders with reliable and relevant information that will help define strategic guidelines in the field of VAW.

UNICEF is undertaking secondary analysis of Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data on harmful practices (FGM/C and child marriage) to be published in 2012. The organization has also completed the revision of the research toolkit on children born of sexual violence and survivors.

ESCWA reported that an e-learning course delivered by the Development Account Project entitled “Measurement of Violence against Women through Statistical Surveys” was conducted from 26 November to 10 December 2011.

WHO is developing an information pack summarizing the evidence for different forms of violence (e.g. intimate partner violence, sexual violence, trafficking, female genital mutilation).

The Regional Coordination Mechanism Thematic Working Group on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (RCM TWGGEEW) (co-chaired by ESCAP and UN Women) established a Working Group on Gender Statistics, which includes a focus on VAW statistics.

Through the UN Women-spearheaded Partnership for Peace (PfP) Violence Intervention Programme in the Caribbean, statistics from a longitudinal assessment in Grenada show that less than 20% of the men who have gone through the programme return to court as repeat offenders. Even though the programme´s evaluation is currently in progress, the available information suggests that its methods are effective in changing men´s violent behaviours.

In June 2011, UNAIDS presented the findings of the “Scorecard on Gender Equality in National HIV Responses”, which monitors country-level progress on implementing the UNAIDS Agenda for Women and Girls. As of December 2011, 93 countries reported data which show that less than one fifth (18 of 93) of countries have national data on the intersection between gender-based violence and HIV; and 40% (38 of 93) of countries’ health sector policies address gender-based violence.

In the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), UN Women has continued to support the multi-purpose Centre for women victims of violence by assisting in the development of formats for the data collection.