Data Collection and Research

UNDP has supported a number of data collection initiatives to support planning, including: research on bottlenecks in the justice chain in the Democratic Republic of Congo; a mapping of specialized services in Serbia; monitoring of cases presented to the Legal Help Centres in Afghanistan; action-oriented research on gaps and issues in accessing justice in Pakistan; a readiness assessment for institutions devlivering services for HIV and GBV in Papua New Guinea; and a study in Panama on the “...Inter institutional obstacles, conducts and attitudes that hinder the effective implementation of dom

UNAIDS produced two publications on transgender people and HIV which highlighted the extremely high prevalence of HIV amongst transgender persons (30 – 38% in Argentina, 10 – 42% in Asia), and the fact that violence against transgender men and women is a significant risk factor for them both in terms of contracting HIV as well as deterring them from accessing health and justice services.

The Violence Against Children Survey part of the Together for Girls Initiative (including UNICEF, UN Women, UNFPA, UNAIDS and WHO as partners) has collected prevalence of and circumstances surrounding violence, targeting females and males aged 13-24, and has already been completed in Kenya, Haiti and Zimbambwe. Results were released in Zimbabwe and Kenya, in May and Novemer 2012, respectively. The results will be released in Haiti, in early 2013.

UNAIDS supported countries to collect data and report on the proportion of ever-married or partnered women aged 15-49 who experienced physical or sexual violence from a male intimate partner in the past 12 months. This was reported for the first time in the 2012 UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic http://www.unaids.org/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/epidemiology/2012/gr2012/20121120_UNAIDS_Global_Report_2012_en.pdf

UNFPA and UNICEF completed the inception phase of a joint global evaluation of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on FGM/C.

UNFPA, supported by AusAID, has carried out research on the sexual and reproductive health needs of women with a disability in Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Tonga, and carried out a study on prevalence and women’s health, in Samoa, in Republic of Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, and Nauru. It aslo supported data collection in the Central American region, in collaboration with INGO Ipas.

UNFPA supported the UN Special Rapporteur on VAW (SRVAW) on the global research relating to the interpretation and implementation of the international law principle of the due diligence obligations of States in the promotion and protection of women’s human rights in general and to a life free of violence in particular.

Two WHO systematic reviews of prevalence and risk factors of violence against sex workers and its links to HIV were finalized and submitted for publication. A recommendation to address violence against women was integrated into WHO Guidelines for Sex Workers released in December 2012. Further information available at:http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/violence/en/index.html; http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence/en/

WHO held consultations among researchers from different parts of the world on interventions research for addressing violence against women in health care settings in order to identify common tools, methodologies and ethical considerations for undertaking such research. As outcomes of the meeting, an international network of researchers conducting interventions was launched and a handbook of interventions research will also be developed.

A randomized controlled trial of a counseling-empowerment intervention in antenatal care settings is being supported by WHO in two countries in Southern Africa. This intervention has been shown to be effective in other settings but will be tested in a low resource, high HIV prevalence setting for the first time.