United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

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.

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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.

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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.

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UNODC continued the training of judicial and law enforcement officials, including in S.Africa and Colombia, and supported in Kenya the development of the training manual entitled ‘Ending Sexual and Gender-based Violence: The Role of the Prosecutors’. In Mexico, the organization trained the Women’s Institute of Durango in strategic planning, measuring and strengthening state policies addressing violence against women. Hide

During the period March 2011 to June 2011, the UNODC Regional Office for Southern Africa organized, together with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat and the Southern African Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organization (SARPCCO), a 5-day national training workshop, like in November 2010, on the development of effective law enforcement responses to violence against women for law enforcement officials in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe during which a total of 138 law enforcement officers were trained. Furthermore, the Office developed and published contextualized national pocket book versions of the “UNODC Handbook for Effective Police Responses to Violence against Women” and its accompanying “Training Curriculum on Effective Police Responses to Violence against Women” for each of the above countries. Hide

UNODC organised several activities to strengthen the capacity of law enforcement, justice and health sector officials to better prevent and respond to violence against women, including training workshops, awareness-raising initiatives and relevant projects in Zambia, South Africa, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan and Lao People's Democratic Republic; and publishment of materials on the "Abuse of a Position of Vulnerability and other "Means" Within the Definition of Trafficking in Persons", to assist criminal justice officers in penal proceedings. Hide

In November 2010, UNODC in collaboration with the Southern African Development Community and the Southern African Regional Police Chief Council Organisation, organized in Pretoria a regional training workshop on effective law enforcement responses to violence against women in the Southern African region, involving trainers from six countries (South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe). The training tested the UNODC Handbook on effective police responses to violence against women and a related training curriculum, adapting them into the specific needs of the Southern African region. In Panama, within the framework of the MDG project “Improving citizen's security in Panama-contributing to the social construction of peace”, UNODC organized a training workshop for justice and law enforcement officers, based also on the UNODC Handbook and on national and international regulation framework (17-18 November). Hide

UNODC has continued its implementation of a project in Viet Nam to strengthen the capacity of law enforcement and justice sectors to prevent and respond to domestic violence. Similar projects are being developed in Panama and Kenya. Hide

UNODC published the Handbook on effective police responses towards violence against women, accompanied by a training curriculum, and the Toolkit on Gender (which is part of the overall UNODC Toolkit on Criminal Justice Assessment). In June 2010, UNODC launched the Needs Assessment Toolkit on the Criminal Justice Response to Human Trafficking, found at: http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/Needs_Assessment_Toolkit_ebook_09-87518_June_2010.pdf. Hide

Pursuant to resolution 18/1 of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, UNODC convened an intergovernmental expert group meeting, in Thailand, in November 2009, to develop, consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (SMR) and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo Rules), supplementary rules specific to the treatment of women in detention and in custodial and non-custodial settings. The meeting was attended by experts from twenty-five countries and non-governmental organizations and it endorsed a set of seventy draft rules. Hide