United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women

During the reporting period, the UN Trust Fund has supported multiple projects focused on sexual violence in conflict including initiatives which have provided essential services to women and girls in conflict situations, supported refugee and IDP women and girls, and initiatives in post-conflict settings which have sought to address the social stigma and discrimination experienced by survivors sexual violence. 

For example, in Kosovo, Medica Gjakova and Medica Kosova are helping women survivors of conflict-related sexual violence inflicted during the 1998-1999 war. Through comprehensive services, including psychosocial counselling, gynaecological care, legal aid, and economic empowerment, the two organizations have helped survivors heal, reclaim their rights and rebuild their lives. Between 2022 and 2024, Medica Kosova assisted over 300 women in applying for "survivor status", which gives them access to pensions, healthcare and other reparations.  The organization also addresses the rise in intimate partner violence, which in 2024 led to over 2,900 documented cases and three femicides. 

In 2024, 43% of the UN Trust Fund's 27th grant-making cycle funding ($5.7 million) supported initiatives for crisis-affected women and girls, including a dedicated special window that channelled $4.6 million to eight organizations, with at least two-thirds of the special window projects addressing conflict-related sexual violence.

Previously, 18 initiatives supported through a funding window focused on forcibly displaced women and girls and refugees (2016-2022) reached over 35,000 refugee and/or forcibly displaced women and girls, with many also addressing sexual violence, notably in refugee camps among women fleeing conflict.

In Kosovo (under Security Council resolution 1244 (1999)), Medica Kosova is implementing a small grant from the UN Trust Fund to implement a project whose aim is to protect the legal rights, including property rights, of women who have experienced gender-based violence during and after the armed conflict, and to improve institutional responses to gender-based violence. Medica Kosova is also providing monitoring and advocacy training for women’s organizations and is working with those organizations to identify shortcomings in the implementation of the national strategy against domestic violence. Thus far, the project has assisted 17 survivors of gender-based violence in obtaining legal support and starting the process of registering their properties. Another nine women, who have obtained official status as survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, have expressed an interest in following the legal procedures to register their houses and farms. In addition, 19 women have applied for the status of survivors of conflict related sexual violence and will be enrolled in the reparations scheme that provides them with a monthly lifetime pension.

In Peru, the organization Red Nacional de Promoción de la Mujer is implementing a project in the regions of Ayacucho and Huánuco aimed at reducing gender-based violence against older women who were victims of conflict-related violence in the 1980s and 1990s. The project has empowered more than 487 women, of whom 44 per cent were over 60 years of age, by increasing their awareness of their rights. Through peer-to-peer exchange workshops, the grantee reached more than 210 older women from various organizations and 286 men and other women, including students and youth groups. The grantee adopted a holistic approach to developing participatory needs assessments, awareness-raising and training workshops and communications campaigns, all focusing on rights, interculturality, gender and aging. The project was also aimed at raising awareness among local officials and advocating for gender- and age-sensitive public policies. As a direct result of the project’s implementation, older women are now part of community surveillance committees and the municipalities’ round table on poverty reduction. In addition, four emblematic cases of violations of women’s rights were reviewed and, to date, one case has been decided in favour of the survivor; the remaining three are pending decisions.

A project implemented by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) with funding from the UN Trust Fund in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya is working to address gaps in the medical-legal process in order to improve responses to sexual violence against women and girls. The programme has been actively engaged in the two countries, both of which have endured widespread, conflict-related sexual violence and were being investigated for mass crimes by the International Criminal Court. 


In December 2017, the Kavumu Case was concluded with the conviction of 11 men for crimes against humanity for the rape of 37 toddlers and young girls over a three-year period in the village of Kavumu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This was a landmark case because a sitting government official was stripped of his immunity and was found guilty for crimes that he and his armed militia committed and because it was the first time that survivors/witnesses were afforded innovative means of protection in court in the country. PHR helped to coordinate the investigation and provided technical assistance to clinicians and police investigators that led to the arrests of militia members.