United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNODC, to implement trafficking programmes in South Asia. Hide

The Handbook for legislation on violence against women (UNDAW/DESA, 2010) was published and its final version is available on the website of DAW, now part of UN Women, https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/v-handbook.htm. Copies of the Handbook are available in Arabic, English, French, Russian and Spanish. DAW and the Centre for Women at the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), held a sub-regional capacity-building workshop in Beirut, Lebanon on legislative frameworks to address violence against women for Government officials, Parliamentarians and representatives of non-governmental organizations from 7 countries in the Middle East. The objective of the workshop was to contribute to the adoption of comprehensive legislation on violence against women and its effective implementation. Hide

DAW, now part of UN Women, now part of UN Women, prepared reports of the Secretary General to the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly on intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women (A/65/208), and trafficking in women and girls (A/65/209).On 11 March 2010, the Commission on the Status of Women held an interactive panel discussion on the theme “Unite to End Violence against Women”. A Moderator’s summary of the panel is available on the DAW website at: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing15/ievents.html. Hide

In Asia Pacific, the Partners for Prevention (P4P) - an inter-agency initiative of UNDP, UNFPA, UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, and UNVs- which works with men and boys to prevent gender-based violence– has developed a comprehensive set of research tools on gender-based violence, including questionnaires, research protocols, and training manuals for the “Gender-based Violence Prevention and Masculinities” Collaborative Research Project for Asia and the Pacific. These tools have been shared with partners in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. In Cambodia, the research findings on GBV and masculinities are informing a public awareness campaign. P4P is also developing the capacity of national partners in China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Papua New Guinea to conduct research in this area, in order to develop evidence-based programs and policy initiatives to address GBV across the region. Networks of practitioners have been established in South Asia and Southeast & East Asia to support the civil society and UN advocates to implement initiatives on GBV prevention through work with men and boys. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, continues to provide technical assistance to advocates, including national women’s machineries, for the development of National Action Plans to end violence against women in: eight Caribbean countries; the Seychelles, through work with the Ministry of Health and Social Development; and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, through a workshop with the Palestinian Ministry of Women’s Affairs on the National Strategy to Combat Violence against Women. UNIFEM issued a ‘Ten Point National Accountability Checklist’ on ending violence against women for policy-makers, parliamentarians, and advocates to strengthen due diligence in the development and tracking of national and local policies/programmes. UNIFEM partnered with excluded groups of women, including indigenous women, HIV-positive women’s networks, young women and migrant women workers from Africa, Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Latin America and the Caribbean to hold policy-makers accountable to eliminate violence.UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, launched its online Global Virtual Knowledge Centre (http://www.endvawnow.org) which provides state-of-the-art, evidence-based guidance to develop capacities of country-level practitioners in effective design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes. Hide

Issues # 7 and 8 of Words to Action, DAW’s (now part of UN Women) quarterly newsletter on violence against women, were issued, with feature articles on the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women, and the 15 year review of the implementation of the Platform for Action. Hide

In May 2010, seven UN agencies (UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, UNDP, UNHCR, OHCHR, UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO) have launched a three-year UN Joint Program "Ending violence against women - a national priority for Kyrgyzstan". Four strategic compenents of the program include: 1) strengthening policy framework, including through the implementation of the recommendations of the UN human bodies and procedures; 2) improving official data collection system and analysis of collected data; 3) awareness-raising, sensititation and capacity-building with the view to change gender stereotypes; 4) protecting and helping survivors of gender-based violence. Hide

In collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)/Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, DAW, now part of UN Women, organized an expert group meeting on good practices in national action plans on violence against women, which took place in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, from 13 to 15 September 2010. During the meeting, experts identified key elements and good practice examples for the development, content, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national action plans on violence against women. Further information regarding the expert group meeting, including expert discussion notes, is available on line at: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/v-egms-nap2010.htm. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, released Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence: An Analytical Inventory of Peacekeeping Practice, developed with DPKO as part of UN Action and supported emergency efforts in Kyrgyzstan related to gender-based violence. Hide

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, continued to support the Secretary-General’s UNiTE Campaign, as a member of its High-Level Steering Committee and global working group; as coordinator with UN sister agencies for rolling-out regional campaigns; and through UNIFEM’s Say NO—UniTE Initiative, which recorded over 400,000 actions to end violence against women and supported awareness-raising initiatives in various countries, ranging from the Caribbean, to Tajikistan, and to northern Uganda. Hide