Prevention and Advocacy

ESCWAS’s Centre for Women (ECW) dedicated one of its periodic newsletters to the topic of elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.

On 31 July 2013, UNICEF launched the global ‘End Violence against Children’ which aims to leverage efforts already underway by a growing number of organizations worldwide to protect children, and urges people everywhere to recognize violence against children, join global, national or local movements to end violence, and encourage action where none is taking place. The initiative serves as a platform for catalysing social change and also for strengthening national protective systems.

UNAIDS supported nine civil society consultations,6 led by the Women Won’t Wait campaign, focusing on HIV and partner violence, and advocating for increased investment in HIV, gender equality and women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights through the Post-2015 development framework. To highlight the gross human rights violation of violence against women, UNAIDS collaborated with the Permanent Mission of Namibia and Victims2Survivors, to launch the Namibian ‘Unite to end Gender-based Violence’ exhibition on 10 December 2013, in Geneva.

Evidence from new studies in three countries on the impact of domestic violence in the workplace was presented by ILO during the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). More information is availbable at: http://www.ilo.org/gender/Events/WCMS_208336/lang--en/index.htm

In the context of the Swiss week to combat trafficking in persons, OHCHR, in cooperation with ILO, IOM and UNHCR organized an expert panel on all forms of human exploitation, including trafficking.

UNODC carried out several interventions to address trafficking in persons. For example, in Colombia, it set up a strategy for the prevention of trafficking in persons, disseminated publications and carried out awareness raising measures, including conferences at schools, urban interventions, theatre performances and the production of a television series highlighting experiences of victims.

UNESCO organized a regional workshop on Women's Empowerment for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence in the Pacific in Nadi, Fiji.

Progress has been made in recent years in relation to the widespread grassroots abandonment of the practice of FGM/C. Several individuals have been gradually been arrested and convicted in 2013, while since the inception of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme and Trust Fund on Female Genital Mutilation in 2008, more than 10,000 communities in 15 countries, representing more than 8 million people have denounced the practice.

The Regional UN Women Campaign ‘El valiente no es violento’ was launched in Quito, Ecuador, aimed at raising awareness among especially young men on ending VAW, and has been further launched at the national level in Cuba, Argentina, Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

ESCAP and UN Women organized an advocacy event on “Ending Violence against Women and Girls” at the Sixth Asian and Pacific Population Conference on 18 September 2013 which focused on coordinated and multi-sectoral actions to prevent and end violence against women and girls in Asia and the Pacific.