Training and Capacity Building

In Mexico, UNODC continued to provide normative assistance on criminal justice and prison reform with emphasis on training and awareness-raising on violence against women.

In Palestine, UNODC published a manual for forensic medical practitioners and a code of practice to aid healthcare practitioners in examining victims of sexual and gender-based violence in accordance with international best practices.

In Egypt, UNODC contributed to the government's strengthening of its response to violence against women and girls and began developing training manuals on the appropriate handling of such cases by police and prosecutors.

In Vietnam, UNODC developed training materials on domestic violence for judges and court personnel and trained police officers and legal aid providers to enhance their responses to domestic violence. Domestic violence response checklists and information collection forms helped front-line officers in identifying and acting on reported cases. UNODC helped develop a ministerial circular on gender equality in legal aid services and trained legal aid officers and pro bono lawyers providing legal aid for victims of domestic violence.

WHO provides support to its collaborating centres and research institutions to strengthen capacity to implement research – including on ethical and safety aspects of conducting research on violence against women, and through workshops and courses on appropriate research methods for this topic.  To facilitate this effort, WHO and RTI (Response to Interventions) International published ethical and safety guidelines for interventions research on VAW in 2016.

In Afghanistan, with support from the WHO, the Ministry of Public Health is training nearly 7000 health providers and upgrading health facilities in all provinces over the next 5 years to deliver Gender Based Violence services to survivors based on implementation of a national treatment protocol and the WHO clinical handbook for responding to intimate partner violence or sexual violence.  In Uganda, health providers in 3 districts were trained based on updated national training guidelines to deliver care and services for GBV to survivors.  Similar efforts are underway in India and Namibia.

In the Central African Republic, IOM is working to prevent SGBV among internally-displaced and host populations. IOM is building capacity among National Police and Gendarmerie forces to respond adequately to SGBV case reports, in coordination with UN Civil Police / CIVPOL. In this effort, IOM is also advocating for the increased recruitment of female police officers. These efforts will provide police with the tools to use a survivor-centred approach, as well as educate them in relation to Central African legislation and international human rights law on rape as a war crime.

Through FAO’s community-based resilience building approach called “Caisses de Résilience”, women’s groups received support to strengthen their technical, financial and social capacities to engage in resilient livelihoods, reintegrate into society and rebuild their self-esteem by gaining increased skills, knowledge and economic self-reliance.

UNHCR has invested a substantial number of hours conducting training for staff and refugees on SGBV. By the end of 2015, UNHCR trained 228,325 persons of concern, 13,693 partner, government, and UNHCR staff.

ESCWA has delivered relevant capacity-building workshops on Violence against Women. Specifically, ESCWA Centre for Women organized in Cairo in 2014 a national workshop on the formulation of a legislative framework to protect women and girls from all forms of violence. Furthermore, ESCWA Centre for Women delivered a relevant capacity-building workshop on addressing Gender-Based Violence in the Arab region through the toolkit for service providers produced in 2015.