Data Collection and Research

In 2009, the World Bank launched the study “Risky Business for Poor Women Traders in the Great Lakes Region”, and the results of the study were captured in a report in January 2011. It identified challenges, including harassment and physical violence against women, and opportunities for cross-border trade between the Eastern Democratic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, and brought both national and regional technical and political recommendations to key stakeholders.

The UNESCO project on “Transforming the Mainstream: Addressing Structural Gender-related Vulnerabilities to HIV and AIDS”, initiated in January 2010, strengthened national and international capacities and skills to support gender-transformative strategies that help eliminate the structural gender inequalities that are driving the HIV pandemic. The project includes the dissemination of the main findings of the research conducted in the context of the UNESCO/Social Science Research Council (SSRC) publication entitled “The Fourth Wave: Violence, Gender, Culture & HIV in the 21st Century”.

The UNESCO Office in Beirut launched in November 2010, in Lebanon, a study on school-related gender-based violence, expected to be completed in December 2011. The study is funded by the Government of Italy, and implemented within the framework of the project “Supporting Gender Equality in Education in Lebanon”, in close collaboration with the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education. UNESCO continued to conduct research on violence against women and its activities to fight human trafficking in Africa.

UNDP and UNESCO supported the Gender Studies Institute (GSI) based at the Kabul University in Afghanistan to conduct a multi-province research on the nature and forms of gender-based violence within educational institutions in Afghanistan. The research was conducted in 2009 in three Afghan Universities (Kabul, Mazar, and Herat): (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001899/189969e.pdf).The findings and recommendations of the research were presented in October 2010 during an advocacy workshop with the Gender Studies Institute, the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health.

In January 2011, UNESCO signed an agreement on the establishment of a Research and Documentation Centre on Women, Gender and Peace-building for the Great Lakes Region, located in Kinshasa (the Democratic Republic of Congo). This Centre is part of UNESCO’s programme to promote the human rights of women living in the Great Lakes Region through policy-oriented research, consultations, networking, capacity-building and the promotion of sustainable peace in this region.

WHO and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) are working on new estimates of prevalence and health risk of intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence and child sexual abuse for the Global Burden of Disease Study.

UNESCO continued to conduct research on violence against women and its activities under its project to fight human trafficking in Africa.

The ILO study project on protecting migrant workers and combating trafficking: Building an information and knowledge base for policy support on international migration in the Gulf Council States examines the living and working conditions of migrant workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States, in which women domestic workers are a crucial concern. The project is based on a survey on the recruitment of migrant workers, their protection in employment including from all forms of violence, their income earning particulars, and their working and living conditions.

ILO, through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), is carrying out statistical work with a view to producing a global estimate on child domestic work.

In September 2009, UNAIDS helped launch and lead a new initiative to prevent sexual violence against girls, which unites the work of five UN agencies with the Clinton Global Initiative and the US Centers for Disease Control, with a particular emphasis on AIDS affected countries. Six countries have begun data collection and programmatic action to strengthen legal and judicial policies as well as health, child protection and community responses to reduce sexual violence.