Prevention and Advocacy

UNODC promotes the Blue Hearth campaign, a global awareness raising initiative to fight human trafficking and its impact on society. 
UNODC is implementing the Education for Justice Initiative and the Doha Declaration. In this framework, UNODC works to raise awareness on trafficking in persons though education, working closely with youth and academics to look into key concepts of trafficking and how this affects in particular women and girls, and how education can contribute to crime prevention and promotion of legality and justice.

UNLIREC organized the first Regional Women and Security Symposium for Latin America and the Caribbean, where the discussion focused on, among other issues, how the SDGs can contribute to improving the lives and security of women. Some of the recommendations reached at the symposium focused on the need for solid national legislation and policy responses to gender-based armed violence and for promoting an inclusive security response to such violence.  

Implementation of training, capacity building and raise awareness activities for the prevention of Violent Extremism, in which women, as key actor of the local communities play an active and important role. 

UNHCR requires all staff to undertake specific actions in their own sector to mitigate risk of SGBV.   In 2017, UNHCR issued a Briefing Paper; WASH, Protection and Accountability http://wash.unhcr.org/download/wash-protection-and-accountability/. It includes case studies and a checklist on WASH and safety and security considerations which impact on SGBV. 

One of OCHA’s 7 priority commitments on gender is to promote gender-responsive Humanitarian Programme Cycle processes. It ensures the systematic inclusion of SGBV programming through the mandatory use of the Gender Marker in funded initiatives, and in reports on how gender and SGBV were addressed during project implementation. As an example, the CERF project application and reporting templates require sex- and age disaggregated data.

A network of field ethics focal points has been created to receive and escalate complaints related to sexual exploitation and abuse. Trainings have been conducted for focal points on ethics procedures and the handling of these complaints, as well as on Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) and FAO's PSEA procedures.

ESCWA, in partnership with the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at the Lebanese American University and UNFPA, organized a youth arts competition for the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence 2017. The competition received over 75 submissions of artwork from youth in the Arab region and the awards event involved a presentation on engaging with visual arts as a means to respond to gender sensitive legal reform. 

To enhance global coordination and advocacy around school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV), UNESCO continues to co-chair the Global Partners Working Group on SRGBV with the UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI). There are now over 40 organizations represented in this group which convenes routine gatherings to exchange technical knowledge and resources and plan joint action including at global meetings, events and advocacy platforms, such as the 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-Based Violence).

The Department of Public Information’s Development Section worked closely with the European Union to launch a strategic partnership, called Spotlight, for ending violence against women and girls on 20 September 2017. This includes an initial pledge of EUR 500 million from the EU to finance programmes on EVAW. DPI developed a website as well as video, web and social media products to raise awareness and drive advocacy.

In 2017, UN Volunteers hosted by UN Women supported communications and public advocacy of gender equality among communities.