Responses and Services

UNODC, in cooperation with UN Women, undertook a mission in Viet Nam to assess the situation women facing when dealing with the criminal justice system, including women subject to gender-based violence, with a view to identify recommendations and programming suggestions.

The establishment of Special Projects is a key development in the UNHCR protection response for survivors. They support multi-sectoral projects in 15 countries and cover a wide range of activities, including strengthening psychosocial response for urban refugees in India, provision of safe houses for IDPs in Haiti, and promotion of livelihoods for refugees in Ethiopia.

UNHCR launched a policy on Access to Justice for Survivors of SGBV, in 2012, aimed at strengthening provision of legal services for survivors. The policy included conducting advocacy and awareness-raising with high-level and local authorities, and capacity-building activities in both formal and informal justice fora.

During the reporting period, UNRWA detected more than 600 survivors and over 400 formal referrals to services were made. Those survivors who did not want to be further referred benefited from counselling by trained staff. UNRWA is continually extending support services into less well-served areas. In Gaza, UNRWA is working through 21 one-stop shops located in UNRWA health centres, while in West Bank, Family and Child Protection Committees have been established in 17 refugee camps with links to 11 health centres.

UN Women manages the project Pacific Regional Facility Fund in Support of Organisations and Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women (EVAW), which is a regional ‘basket fund’ to support a small grants facility for Pacific Island organisations and actions to eliminate VAW.

In Latin America, UNODC Regional Office for Brazil and the Southern Cone developed a project for the strengthening of public and civil society institutions to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. The project seeks to improve the countries' capacity to offer support to gender-based violence victims and to develop a regional knowledge/expertise on this problem and to architect a good practices network, gathering players from the community, civil society and governmental institutions.

In Afghanistan, OHCHR/UNAMA provided support to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and provincial Departments to establish commissions on the elimination of violence against women in different provinces.

UNHCR office in India and in cooperation with the government, in response to one of the recommendations from the Dialogues with refugee replaced paper refugee certificates with smart ID cards, resulting in enhanced protection and access to services. In refugee camps where UNHCR has SGBV programs, UNHCR and its partners ensured that 95% of known survivors received support services; in urban areas the support reached 87% of survivors.

Under the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund-EVAW), UN Women was supporting activities to monitor cases of sexual and gender-based violence committed under the Khmer Rouge regime, as well as to build safe working conditions for women workers.

In Uganda, OHCHR, in partnership with the Human Rights Commission, consulted women and girls who were victims of grave violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law on their views on remedy and reparation. This work was published in the report “The Dust Has Not Settled: Community reflections on reparations in northern Uganda.” In May 2011, an expert meeting on gender and witness and victim protection was organized.