United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

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

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

UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, contributed to improved policies and service delivery for women survivors of violence, through its work with National Women’s Machineries, including in Ghana, Liberia and Peru; increased access to legal assistance in Ethiopia, Fiji and the Occupied Palestinian territory (oPt); and strengthened police response in Nigeria. UNIFEM deployed teams in post-earthquake settlements in Haiti to provide referrals for survivors of violence. 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, 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

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

In addition to ongoing training of judges, lawyers, police and other ‘duty bearers’ in many countries, UNIFEM, now part of UN Women, finalized programming modules, available at www.endvawnow.org, which offer state-of-the-art guidance from leading experts and country experiences on how to address violence against women, in three areas: safe cities, engaging men and boys, and legal reform. Hide