Violence against women is arguably the world’s most prevalent, pervasive, and systemic problem. It is a problem without borders, a universal scourge on women and their families that knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. It has grown to epidemic proportions around the world, devastating lives, fracturing communities and prohibiting development. At least one in three women worldwide will be beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime — with the abuser usually someone known to her.

According to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, it is “perhaps the most shameful human rights violation.” Unless tackled systematically at all levels of society with zero-tolerance policies and a concerted effort by the international community and governments to make it socially unacceptable and a crime, gender-based violence will stall any real progress towards equality, development and peace.

Some Progress: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
In the last two decades, women’s organizations have taken the lead in moving the issue from the shadows into the public eye, taking innovative steps to focus world attention on the problem. Initiatives ranging from providing medical, legal, counseling and protection services, to drafting and lobbying for legislation, raising awareness and changing attitudes through advocacy, education and training, and building national, regional and international end-violence networks have led to dramatic changes in norms, laws, policies and practices in many countries.

These efforts have been supported by international standards and policies that recognize violence against women as a human rights abuse, such as the 1981 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that obliges states parties to the convention to take all appropriate means to eliminate violence against women; the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1993; and the Beijing Platform for Action of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, which explicitly acknowledges that the human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely on matters related to their sexual and reproductive health and sexuality, free of discrimination, coercion and violence. In 1996, the UN General Assembly also established the UNIFEM Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women; this is a unique grant-making mechanism that provides support to catalytic programmes in developing countries working to prevent gender-based violence.

Today, following global and regional commitments and treaties and the tireless efforts of activists, at least 45 nations have passed new laws that explicitly prohibit domestic violence, while more than 21 countries are drafting new laws. Twenty-five countries have adopted laws and policies addressing female genital mutilation, 16 countries have passed distinct legislation on sexual assault, 14 countries have adopted laws on sexual harassment, and another 46 have incorporated provisions related to sexual harassment in non-specific legal codes. Continued advocacy and NGO-government dialogues have led to responses that directly address female survivors of violence, such as special female police stations, community policing, gender-sensitive training for law-enforcement officials and the judiciary, women’s and people’s courts, and one-stop crisis centres.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
and the Sixteen Days of Activism Global Campaign

In December 1999, at their 54th Session, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring November 25th the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This was in recognition of the magnitude of the problem and the urgent need for serious commitment by the world community to make finding solutions a key priority.

The origins of November 25th go back to 1960, when the Mirabal sisters, activists from the Dominican Republic, were violently assassinated for their political activism. The sisters, known as the “Unforgettable Butterflies,” became a symbol of the crisis of violence against women in Latin America. November 25th was the date chosen to commemorate their lives and promote global recognition of gender-based violence, and has been observed in Latin America since the 1980s.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an annual global campaign started in 1991 by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University in the United States. The campaign begins on November 25th, runs through World AIDS Day on December 1st and ends on Human Rights Day on December 10th. Since it was started, more than 1,700 organizations in 130 countries have participated, using the annual campaign as an organizing strategy to call attention to gender-based violence and better resources to combat it.

The theme for 2004 is “For the Health of Women, For the Health of the World: No More Violence,” with specific emphasis on the intersection between violence against women and the spread of HIV/AIDS. The theme complements the theme of World AIDS Day 2004, on “Women and AIDS,” and also follows on the attention received at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok in July 2004 on the growing disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.

For more information, please visit Not a Minute More, UNIFEM’s web pages on November 25th and the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.

UNIFEM’S EVAW TRUST FUND
The United Nations Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence Against Women will provide a grant of US$50,000 to Fiji’s Women Action for Change (WAC) for its 2005 programme.
The Trust Fund is a unique multilateral mechanism established by the UN General Assembly in 1996 and administered by UNIFEM. Grants are decided collectively by representatives of UN agencies and international NGOs.

The UNIFEM Trust Fund in support of Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women is the only UN global grant-making mechanism that supports innovative community efforts to end violence against women worldwide. Since it was established in 1997, the Trust Fund has awarded over US $19 million to $263 initiatives to address violence against women in 115 countries.
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Since its establishment, the Trust Fund has granted US$8.3 million to 175 initiatives in 96 countries. Demand continues to outstrip supply. UNIFEM has received up to US$17.5 million in requests, with only about US$1 million to give out each year. “For every project funded, there are at least ten turned away. Over the last 8 years, we have learned from the innovative efforts of nongovernmental and governmental organizations worldwide, efforts that have made real progress on the issue. They must continue to be supported if there is to be an end in sight to violence against women. Our biggest obstacle is not a lack of ideas. It is a lack of resources,” said Noeleen Heyzer (UNIFEM’s Executive Director).

Donors to the 2004 grant-making cycle include Japan, Denmark, Finland, Trinidad and Tobago, as well as NGOs and private individuals.

For more information on the Trust Fund, click here

PACIFIC REGIONAL SCAN

In 2002, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) conducted a global assessment on actions to end violence against women to determine what the movement to end violence against women (VAW) had achieved since the Beijing Conference for Women, and identify gaps in action and impact. As part of that global assessment process, a Pacific regional scan was conducted by UNIFEM in 2002. The scan focused on violence against women and girls, actions by government and non-government organizations to eliminate violence against women, and the impact of support from UNIFEM’s programmes and projects. The scan concluded that actions to eliminate violence against women in the Pacific had mainly been initiated and sustained by women’s organizations and non-government organizations (NGOs) and that government implementation of commitments in international, regional and national plans of action, to eliminate violence against women, needed to be strengthened.

In February 2003, a regional workshop in Fiji on Strengthening Pacific Partnerships for the Eliminating Violence Against Women, was jointly organized by UNIFEM with the Commonwealth Secretariat and the two main regional intergovernmental organizations, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (FS) and the Secretariat for the Pacific Community (SPC). The workshop, attended by over 70 participants from 17 Pacific countries, exchanged information on Pacific government strategies for the elimination of violence against women, on the Commonwealth’s model of an integrated approach to EVAW and concluded with recommendations for strengthening GO, NGO and agency partnerships in EVAW strategies in the Pacific region . The Outcome Statement from the workshop reiterated the seriousness of the problem of gender violence in the Pacific, the need for actions to be taken in partnership with other organizations and agencies, and raised issues of the cost of VAW, the need for coordinated approaches to the problem and the need to address cultural and religious practices that victimized and oppressed women. The recommendations from the workshop were presented at the Forum Regional Security Meeting in June 2003.

As a follow up to the Pacific regional workshop of 2003, and drawing on the main conclusions of the scan conducted by UNIFEM in 2002 which provided detailed information on the work of women’s organizations and NGOs to eliminate violence against women and girls, UNIFEM identified the need to strengthen government commitments to eliminating violence against women in its programmes.

From December 2003 to March 2004, in preparation for developing a regional programme on EVAW, UNIFEM conducted a regional assessment to review current Pacific strategies on violence against women by government and non-government organizations, to identify needs and gaps.

Reviewing the overall framework of legislation, policies and programme, violence against women in conflicts and the role of the media and communications, the regional assessment built on the regional scan conducted in 2002, which primarily focused on EVAW activities by women’s organizations and NGOs. For the regional assessment, emphasis was given to reviewing government strategies to address VAW. Country visits were made to Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Samoa for in-depth interviews with government (GO) and non-government (NGO) personnel, to find out their experiences of VAW and views on EVAW strategies. Interviews were also conducted in Fiji with GO and NGO representatives and with representatives of UN agencies, regional organizations and regional training programmes based in Suva.

The general findings of the regional assessment and recommendations for programme interventions by UNIFEM, were presented at a two day consultation from March 29-30th 2004, which was attended by representatives from Pacific countries and UN agencies, with select expertise various in EVAW activities in the region. The consultation agreed with the findings of the regional assessment and the scan.

The main findings presented at the consultation were that responses to VAW in the region have been mainly carried out by women’s organizations and NGOs. Activities that were well established as strategies to respond to VAW were awareness raising, training, provision of services and support for women victims/survivors, and advocacy for legislative and policy reform. It was noted that national machineries for women were also key actors in awareness raising and conducting training on VAW, worked often in partnership with women’s groups and NGOs on VAW, and had conducted or supported research on VAW. Assessing the strategies to bring about change in policies and practices in relation to VAW, it was noted that the police and the judiciary were the main targets for awareness and advocacy on VAW, with efforts by women’s organizations and NGOs focused on better treatment of women victims/survivors of violence.

The assessment noted that many sectors in government were not involved in strategies to eliminate VAW or promotion of gender equality strategies. In government, it was assumed that EVAW and gender equality strategies were the responsibility of the national machineries for women.

National machineries for women have varying capacities and resources. Some national machineries are Ministries and have the mandate to review government policy and legislation, including responses to VAW while others are smaller divisions with the same mandate but not enough power or resources to do policy analysis or advise on government policies. The national machineries give high priority to violence against women as a problem and see government responses to implementation through CEDAW and national action plans as the best approach. National women’s machineries in many countries are the focal point and coordinate CEDAW and CRC Committees, which are existing mechanisms for advancing EVAW strategies.

In some countries, law reform proposals and advocacy were well underway and supported by women’s rights advocates, national machineries for women and government officials in interagency committees, but delays were sometimes reported as due to lack of decisions by higher officials or support by parliamentarians. The assessment noted that policy makers and high level officials, apart from personnel in the judiciary and parliamentary representatives, were not targeted for gender advocacy; policy analysis and review and research for advocacy at high levels of government, were also gaps in EVAW strategies.