29/3 Report of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women on the activities of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women

United Nations A/HRC/29/3–E/CN.6/2015/6

General Assembly Economic and Social Council

Distr.: General

5 December 2014

Original: English

14-67252 (E) 140115

*1467252*

General Assembly Economic and Social Council

Human Rights Council Twenty-ninth session

June 2015

Agenda item 2

Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner

for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

and the Secretary-General

Commission on the Status of Women Fifty-ninth session

9-20 March 2015

Item 3 (c) of the provisional agenda*

Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference

on Women and to the twenty-third special

session of the General Assembly, entitled

“Women 2000: gender equality, development

and peace for the twenty-first century”:

gender mainstreaming, situations and

programmatic matters

Report of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women on the activities of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women

Summary

The Secretary-General has the honour to transmit herewith to the Commission

on the Status of Women and the Human Rights Council the report of the United

Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women on the

activities of the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate

Violence against Women, which was prepared in compliance with General Assembly

resolution 50/166.

* E/CN.6/2015/1.

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I. Introduction

1. The United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence

against Women is a global, multilateral, grant-making mechanism established in

1996 pursuant to General Assembly resolution 50/166. It is administered by the

United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women

(UN-Women) on behalf of the United Nations system. UN-Women provides the

Trust Fund with a strong institutional foundation and field support through its

regional, multi-country and country offices. The Trust Fund supports and

strengthens the work of UN-Women to prevent and address violence against women

and girls and works closely with the rest of the United Nations system through the

members of its Programme Advisory Committee.1 Working in synergy with

UN-Women, other United Nations agencies and members of the Programme

Advisory Committee, the Trust Fund plays a vital role in driving forward collective

efforts that engage the wider community — women and men, girls and boys. The

Trust Fund continues to ensure that its work integrates the Framework for Action of

the Secretary-General’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women.

2. The Trust Fund is exclusively dedicated to addressing violence against women

and girls in all its forms. It supports national, regional and cross -regional initiatives

that work to systematically prevent, address, respond to and, with persistence,

eliminate this global pandemic. To date, the Trust Fund has awarded $103 million to

393 initiatives in 136 countries and territories. Its current portfolio consists of

95 grants for projects in 75 countries and territories, for a total value of $56,311,108.

3. A commitment to and strategic implementation of a results-driven resource

mobilization strategy enabled the Trust Fund to significantly increase its overall

resources for grant making in 2014 and meet its target of raising $15 million. The

financial contributions and political support of a range of partners were critical to

the Trust Fund’s success.

4. As of December 2014, the Governments of Australia, Germany, Iceland,

Ireland, Israel, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland had contributed to the Trust Fund’s

eighteenth grant-making cycle. Zonta International and the UN Women for Peace

Association continued to support Trust Fund initiatives. The Trust Fund also

received support from Benetton as well as the UN Women National Committees of

Finland, Iceland, Japan and Switzerland.

__________________

1 In 2014, Programme Advisory Committee members at the global and regional levels included:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; International Labour Organization;

Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific; Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Refugees; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human

Rights; Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS; United Nations Development

Programme; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; United Nations

Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; United Nations Children’s Fund;

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; United Nations Population Fund; Office of the

Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict; United Nations

Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict; World Health Organization; World Food

Programme; World Bank. Leading civil society organizations, intergovernmental organizations

and other experts at the global and field levels — including representatives from the Centre for

Women’s Global Leadership, Equality Now, and the International Organization for Migration —

were also actively involved in the grant-making process.

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5. The Trust Fund focuses its funding on three priority programme areas:

preventing violence against women and girls; expanding survivors ’ access to

support services; and strengthening the implementation of laws, policies and action

plans. The Trust Fund has also created three special Thematic Windows to support

global learning initiatives. Each of the Windows groups together grantees working

on similar types of interventions in the areas of: violence against women in conflict,

post-conflict and transitional settings; the intersection between HIV/AIDS and

violence against women and girls; and violence against adolescent girls. In addition

to giving sustained visibility to these issues, the Thematic Windows help to identify

good and promising practices and generate knowledge about effective methods of

and approaches to eliminating violence against women and girls.

6. The present report, prepared for the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on

the Status of Women and the twenty-ninth session of the Human Rights Council,

describes the impact and achievements of the Trust Fund in 2014.

II. Context

7. The World Health Organization estimates that one in three women worldwide

will experience either physical or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner

sexual violence in her lifetime.2 The most common form of violence experienced by

women is intimate partner violence; a global study on homicide found that almost

half of female homicide victims are killed by members of their family or intimate

partners, whereas the equivalent figure for male victims is just over one fifth.3

Current economic crises have exacerbated women’s economic disadvantage and

subsequent cutbacks in social spending on health and education have increased

women’s risk of exploitation and violence (see A/HRC/26/39).

8. The Trust Fund recognizes that violence against women and girls can often be

directly linked to their lack of economic empowerment and that precarious and

disadvantaged economic situation can further facilitate women ’s exploitation or

abuse by partners, relatives, employers, and others in their communities. It can also

prevent women and girls from escaping violence and building new lives for

themselves and their families. To truly transform the existing social beliefs,

practices and cultural models that fuel violence, it is necessary to address and bring

to an end the multiple and interconnected disadvantages, including all forms of

discrimination and exclusion that girls and women experience worldwide.

9. The year 2015 will be a critical juncture for future efforts to end violence

against women and girls. Discussions about the post-2015 development agenda,

including the sustainable development goals, and debates surrounding the upcoming

twentieth anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the Beijing

Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), will provide a pivotal opportunity to

reposition the issue of violence against women and girls and ensure that it is placed

at the centre of the post-2015 sustainable development agenda. In this context, the

United Nations Trust Fund is more determined than ever to support the __________________

2 World Health Organization, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, South African

Medical Research Council, Global and Regional Estimates of Violence against Women:

Prevalence and Health Effects of Intimate Partner Violence and Non-partner Sexual Violence

(Geneva, World Health Organization, 2013).

3 Global Study on Homicide 2013 (United Nations publication, Sales No. 14.IV.1).

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implementation of national and international commitments by Member States and

their translation into real changes in the lives of women and girls.

III. Trust Fund grantee achievements in 2014

10. The sustainability both of the programmes themselves and of the

improvements in the lives of women and girls that they bring about, is a key

criterion for the Trust Fund in assessing its long-term impact. This in turn depends

on building capacity among grantees to determine the effectiveness of initiatives

and methodologies and to sustain them beyond the life of the grant. In 2014, one of

the Trust Fund’s key annual capacity-building and monitoring initiatives, its

development workshop for new grantees, was held in Turkey in March. The event

aimed at enabling the 17 grantee organizations that attended to implement, monitor

and evaluate their projects more effectively and in line with the Trust Fund ’s vision.

In addition, it provided grantees with a valuable opportunity to exchange knowledge

and share experiences and promising practices.

11. Drawing on the United Nations Trust Fund monitoring missions implemented

this year, annual evaluation reports from grantees and discussions with partners and

donors, the present report highlights Trust Fund grantee results in the following

areas: preventing violence against young and adolescent girls through leadership

development and education; implementing laws and policies to respond effectively

to violence against women and girls; advancing transitional justice and addressing

violence against women and girls in emergency settings; and engaging the private

sector in prevention and response efforts.

12. Throughout 2014, the Trust Fund undertook extensive monitoring missions to

13 countries in four regions in order to validate the results and effectiveness of Tru st

Fund-supported programmes. The Trust Fund visited seven grantees from Eastern

Europe and Central Asia in six countries (Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and

Herzegovina, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine); seven grantees from Asia in three

countries (Cambodia, China and Thailand); four grantees from Africa in two

countries (Nigeria and Uganda); and two grantees from the Caribbean (Belize and

Grenada). These missions included meetings with grantee organizations, partner

organizations, primary and secondary beneficiaries and key stakeholders and visits

to key project sites.

13. In 2014, the implementation of Trust Fund programmes benefited over

1 million women, girls, men and boys. In total, over 700,000 women and girls were

involved in programme activities, including 89,802 survivors of violence,

38,102 women and girls living with HIV/AIDS and 4,385 women human rights

defenders. In addition, Trust Fund-supported programmes engaged 208,658 men and

boys and strategically reached over 22 million people through awareness -raising,

social media campaigns, radio and television shows, theatre and other forms of

education-entertainment.

Preventing violence against young and adolescent girls through leadership and

education strategies

14. Violence against children often goes unnoticed and unreported. Although both

boys and girls are victims of violence, their experiences of and vulnerabilities to

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violence differ.4 The availability of data on violence against young and adolescent

girls at the national level remains scarce. However, a recent study carried out by the

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 42 countries found that the proportion

of adolescent girls who reported experiencing some form of physical violence

between the ages of 15 and 19 ranged from 4 per cent in Kazakhstan to more than

50 per cent in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.5 Up to 12 per

cent of girls aged 15 to 19 in countries with available comparable data reported

incidents of sexual violence during the previous year. 5

15. Efforts by the Trust Fund to address this critical situation include programmes

targeting young and adolescent girls in school and after-school settings, raising

awareness of girls’ rights among boys and girls, empowering girls through sports,

leadership, capacity-building and sensitizing teachers and administrators. The Trust

Fund is currently investing more than $9 million in this area to support 18 grants

that address violence against young girls and adolescent girls.

16. Increasing knowledge and self-protection capabilities is crucial for effective

violence-reduction initiatives. This was, therefore, a core component of many

grantees’ initiatives. Several placed particular emphasis on raising awareness among

the young and focused on their potential to drive forward changes in social attitudes

that will provide sustainable progress towards eliminating violence against women

and girls. For example, one grantee, the Beijing Cultural Development Cent re for

Rural Women, finalized implementation of the three-year project to address violence

against “left-behind” girls — girls abandoned in their villages by migrant parents —

in Suizhou City, Hubei Province, China. Both quantitative surveys and qualitative

interviews indicated that the project had been effective in disseminating knowledge

and increasing the capacity of “left-behind girls”, their guardians and teachers. By

the close of the project at the end of 2013, in total 500 local teachers, 5,000 students

and 2,200 guardians participated in training and awareness-raising activities on

preventing child abuse. Six resource centres were set up in communities, which led

to creation of the first local non-governmental organization to offer services to

young people and children, providing a platform for preventing sexual abuse to

“left-behind” children.

17. In Malawi, with Trust Fund support, the civil society organization Concern

Worldwide is implementing a programme to ensure a safe school environment free

from violence and discrimination in 17 primary schools in Nsanje province. More

than 6,800 girls and 7,200 boys are participating in Student Councils, peer-led

spaces of reflection, to advocate for gender equality and ending violence against

girls. The project has also involved more than 5,233 teachers in developing positive

discipline policies. In addition to focusing on raising awareness and increasing

knowledge, the programme will also seek to ensure that girls have responsive

structures, where they can report abuse.

18. In Peru, more than 227 young people took part in leadership training

developed by Trust Fund grantee, the Asociación de Comunicadores Sociales

__________________

4 UNICEF, Innocenti Research Centre and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands, A Study

on Violence against Girls: Report on the International Girl Child Conference , 10 March 2009,

The Hague, the Netherlands, 2009 (UNICEF, 2009).

5 UNICEF, Hidden in Plain Sight: A Statistical Analysis of Violence against Children (New York,

September 2014). The study found that only 8 per cent of children worldwide live in countries

that prohibit corporal punishment in all settings.

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Calandria (Calandria Social Communicators’ Association). The training

implemented an intercultural and participatory programme involving

Afro-descendant, Indigenous and Andean adolescent boys and girls. The project’s

greatest impact was in enhancing participants’ self-esteem, self-confidence and

communication skills. Trainees created a network and established a “gender agenda”

with specific proposals to prevent violence against adolescent girls in their

communities. In all three locations where the programme was implemented,

networks of young people were formed. This strengthened their ability not only to

make their voices heard, but also to have their views acted upon by local

policymakers. Families reported that adolescent girls shared their new knowledge

within the household and that the impact of the project positively influenced family

dynamics. Among the most notable changes was girls’ greater ability to plan and

build a future for themselves in which marriage and motherhood were contemplated

at a later age and the value of personal and/or professional development and

contributing to the community was more highly regarded.

19. The Trust Fund-supported project implemented by the European Centre for

Minority Issues Kosovo focuses on reducing the risk of domestic violence and early

and forced marriage faced by women and girls from minority communities. The

project primarily targets women and girls from Serb, Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian

communities, but beneficiaries also include community-based groups, educational

professionals, as well as boys and men.

20. The initial phase of the project, the first of its kind in Kosovo (under Security

Council resolution 1244 (1999)), is focusing on training activists from the targeted

communities to act as community-based paralegals. After receiving training,

paralegals have conducted 250 home visits and begun a programme of reaching out

to more women through quarterly meetings in each municipality. In particular, the

paralegals are active in raising awareness about women’s rights and providing legal

advice on issues related to divorce, child custody, adoption rights, property rights

and social, medical and food assistance. In addition to gaining increased trust within

communities, paralegals are also establishing synergies with other relevant

stakeholders, including community police officers and representatives from the

Centres for Social Welfare, which helped to facilitate the referral of

victims/survivors.

Implementing laws and policies to respond to violence against women and girls

21. States have progressively put into place laws and policies to prevent and

respond to violence against women. However, implementation in many countries

remains slow. Implementation efforts that have had most success are those involving

multisectoral strategies that include partnerships between Governments and civil

society organizations; effective prevention systems and support services for

survivors; adequate budgets; extensive data collection and analysis; specific

timelines and targets; and strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms (see

A/69/222, para. 22). These elements are, therefore, critical in identifying initiatives

that are likely to have greatest impact.

22. An effective holistic response strategy should not only criminalize violence

against women and girls, but it must also provide preventative measures and support

for survivors so that they can access justice (ibid., para. 10). The Trust Fund

supports programmes that work to establish or to strengthen coordinated

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multisectoral responses to violence against women and girls and facilitate women ’s

and girls’ enjoyment of their human rights.

23. In Colombia, Chile and El Salvador, a Trust Fund-supported project,

implemented by the civil society organization, Sur Corporación de Estudios

Sociales y Educación (Sur Corporación), is working with the police, one of the key

actors in enforcing laws and policies to address violence against women and girls.

Sur Corporación focused on addressing the need to strengthen police recording and

follow-up of reports of violence against women through the implementation of an

in-person and online course on policing and women’s right to live in a city free of

violence. In total these courses have engaged almost 700 police officers, enhancing

their knowledge of the different types and modalities of violence against women.

24. From the start, the high level of commitment on the part of the various

institutions was reflected in attendance, participation and engagement. The project

has also fostered improved communication between the police and women ’s

organizations in all three countries, helping to establish a common language and

understanding of violence against women and girls. Comprehensive follow-up

workshops provided an important space where representatives from the police and

from women’s organizations were able to identify critical aspects of procedures and

protocols for preventing and addressing gender-based violence.

25. The Jordanian Women’s Union implemented a three-year project supported by

the Trust Fund, to formulate a regional holistic response to eliminate trafficking of

women. The project was implemented in partnership with the Egyptian Centre for

Women’s Assistance and Union de l’Action Feminine (Union for Women’s Action)

in Morocco. In addition to the training of 35 organizations in providing services to

trafficked women, shelters and hotlines were able to ensure that 388 survivors of

trafficking were given access to psychosocial and legal support, with the overall

objective of reintegration into their families and communities. More than

1,000 women in Egypt and Morocco participated in awareness-raising sessions on

the risks associated with trafficking, including their rights under the law. These

focused particularly on those living in areas targeted by traffickers, primarily in

rural and poor communities.

26. Other key results of the project included establishing effective coordination

and networking among partners and coalitions, including local and national

non-governmental organizations and government and judicial and law enforcement

representatives; the drafting of anti-trafficking model laws, which incorporated the

definition of trafficking as specified in the United Nations Protocol to Prevent,

Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children; and

the training of 120 police officers, judges and prosecutors on trafficking as a human

rights issue.

27. In Cabo Verde, more than 2,000 survivors of violence were reached in 2014 by

a project implemented by Trust Fund grantee, the national institute of Cabo Verde

for gender equality and equity (Instituto Caboverdiano para a Igualdade e Equidade

de Género). Support centres for survivors were opened in Santiago, Fogo and

Boavista and further centres are under discussion with the Ministry of Justice. In

March, the project was featured by the Cabo Verde Music Awards, an important

cultural event in the country. This was a significant step in ensuring wider publicity

for issues of gender, gender-based violence and effective responses to intimate

partner violence.

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28. In Belarus, the Trust Fund supported a project run by the United Nations

Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNICEF and the International Organization for

Migration to strengthen capacity to prevent and address intimate partner vio lence

through the creation of multisectoral teams and the development of Cooperation

Protocols. In addition, referral mechanisms were established in three pilot sites

(Minsk; the Moskovskiy district of Brest City; and the Kobryn and Kamieniec

districts of Brest oblast) to strengthen access to social and legal services for

survivors of intimate partner violence. More than 3,700 callers have benefited from

a nationwide toll-free hotline for domestic violence, staffed by five trained

specialists who provide psychological, legal and social support.

29. In Grenada, the standard operating procedures for medical personnel and

stakeholders were approved by the Cabinet in May 2014. These were developed by

the Ministry of Social Development, a Trust Fund grantee, in collaboration with the

Ministry of Health and the Pan-American Health Organization and were designed to

facilitate the implementation of a multisectoral initiative to increase outreach to

survivors and improve the quality of health and justice services.

30. The Albanian Network against Gender Violence and Trafficking, led by the

Refleksione Association, piloted a multisectoral project aimed at ensuring the

effective implementation of new legislation in Albania on domestic violence. By

the end of the project, a referral mechanism for women experiencing domestic

violence has been established not only in the 10 municipalities targeted by the

project, but also in 12 others where the United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP) and the Refleksione Association had initiated similar projects; that is, in a

total of 22 of Albania’s 65 municipalities. A network of 12 shelters and counselling

centres was also established, to ensure the development and implementation of

harmonized standards of services throughout Albania.

Advancing transitional justice and addressing violence against women and girls

in emergency settings

31. In 2014, violence in conflict and post-conflict settings continued to garner

international attention. In June, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign

and Commonwealth Affairs and Angelina Jolie, Special Envoy for the United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, co-chaired the Global Summit to End

Sexual Violence in Conflict. The International Protocol on the Documentation and

Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict: Basic Standards of Best Practice on

the Documentation of Sexual Violence as a Crime under International Law is a

result of this initiative. A current Trust Fund grantee, Physicians for Human Rights,

was instrumental in designing the Protocol.6

32. In addition, in June the Secretary-General issued a guidance note on

reparations for conflict-related sexual violence that develops policy and operational

guidance for United Nations action.7 The note mentions that the Trust Fund has

been a key resource for funding reparations for survivors of sexual violence in

Sierra Leone.

__________________

6 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict:

Basic Standards of Best Practice on the Documentation of Sexual Violence as a Crime under

International Law (London, June 2014).

7 Available from http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Press/GuidanceNoteReparationsJune-2014.pdf.

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33. Trust Fund grantee, the Ukrainian Foundation for Public Health responded to

the heightened need for services resulting from the escalating conflict i n the

Donetsk region, which continued to fuel increased instability and violence in the

region. Nearly 300 state and non-governmental organization service providers

engaged in training on responding to cases of violence against women, with a

special focus on girls and young women living and working on the streets and

HIV-positive women and girls. In addition, a protocol drafted by the Ukrainian

Foundation for Public Health was approved by members of a multisectoral working

group, partner agencies and the Ministry of Social Policy.

34. A total of 306 survivors of violence against women — 117 in Kyiv and 189 in

three up-scale cities — were identified, referred and received assistance. The

number of clients receiving programme services rose to 329 and 176 survivors of

gender-based violence, including HIV-positive and/or street-involved women and

girls, were engaged in the empowerment training programme.

35. With support from the Trust Fund, the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice

is implementing a project that seeks to address violence against women in conflict,

post-conflict and transitional settings in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,

Libya, Sudan and Uganda. The project’s goal is to advance gender justice in

countries under investigation by the International Criminal Court. Working with a

wide range of local partners, Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice documentation

data and advocacy directly contributed to the gathering of evidence that supported

the prosecution of sexual and gender-based crimes in nine cases relating to the four

project countries. In 2014, the project reached 4,959 women and girls and

31,612 secondary beneficiaries across the target countries.

36. In Uganda, the Parliament adopted a landmark resolution calling for

reparations for war-affected women and other victims of the Lord’s Resistance

Army. The resolution followed years of advocacy by the women ’s movement,

including the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice and their partners. The

resolution came at a crucial moment and helped to create greater momentum for

gender justice.

37. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, local partners highlighted continued

improvements in documentation, thanks to the Women’s Initiatives for Gender

Justice project. The Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice documentation was used

to identify witnesses and directly contributed to the inclusion of additional charges

of rape and sexual slavery of child soldiers in the International Criminal Court

indictment of Bosco Ntaganda. This was the first time that a military leader had

been indicted under international law for acts of sexual violence committed against

child soldiers within his own militia.

38. Almost 774 survivors of gender-based violence who would otherwise not have

had access to medical support were referred through the Women’s Initiatives for

Gender Justice-supported Transit House project in North Kivu, the Democratic

Republic of the Congo. Survivors received an initial medical assessment and

psychosocial support; 70 per cent went on to receive specific medical treatment,

including surgery for rape-related injuries.

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Integrating the private sector into prevention efforts

39. Globally, 53 per cent of women are employed in vulnerable jobs — either

informal or unpaid — which can increase the risk of experiencing violence. This

problem is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where more than

80 per cent of women are in this type of employment.8 In addition, 79 countries still

have laws that restrict the types of jobs women can perform.9 A recent publication

commissioned by the World Bank asserts that the private sector has been

insufficiently involved in efforts to prevent and address violence against women. In

order for this situation to change, workplaces need to adopt anti -harassment codes

and guidelines to make the workplace a safe space for women and establish

alliances with women’s rights organizations.10

40. The Trust Fund invests in programmes that address these challenges and that

aim to fully integrate the private sector as a key stakeholder in ending violence

against women.

41. Trust Fund grantee CARE International in Cambodia helped to create safe

workplaces and communities. Building on a successful initiative previously

supported by the Trust Fund, the project is working to scale up effective

participatory community and workplace interventions in the garment, tourism and

hospitality industries to promote safer workplaces. The project continued to work

with police, for example, building on its collaboration with the Ministry of the

Interior and training police focal points. It focused on initial engagement methods

with garment factory workers to create effective policies within factories to reduce

sexual harassment and gender-based violence and to ensure that workers can report

abuse if it does occur. A curriculum for garment factory workers was developed for

specific workplaces by adapting the International Labour Organization publication

entitled Equality and non-discrimination at work in Cambodia: Manual. This was

piloted with 71 garment factory workers and 87 hospitality workers. The Garment

Manufacturers Association in Cambodia agreed to support CARE’s efforts to end

harassment at the workplace.

42. Trust Fund grantee the Fair Wear Foundation adopted a holistic approach,

including awareness-raising and training, to address harassment and violence

against women in export-orientated garment factories in Bangladesh and India. Over

3,500 workers in India and Bangladesh received direct training in 24 factories,

while another 15,000 workers were trained via peer-to-peer education as part of the

preventing workplace violence project. Twenty anti-harassment committees,

composed of workers’ representatives, factory management and non-governmental

organization representatives, were operational in Bangladesh and India in 2014. The

programme also completed supervisors’ training in at least six factories, reaching

121 participants. Advanced training for anti-harassment committee members was

conducted at nine factories reaching nearly 100 people — 82 women and 17 men.

43. One of the project’s major achievements was the higher level of reporting of

harassment cases in the anti-harassment committees and via a telephone helpline.

__________________

8 UN-Women, Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2012: In Pursuit of Justice (New York, 2011).

9 World Bank, Women, Business and the Law 2014: Removing Restrictions to Enhance Gender

Equality — Key Findings (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).

10 Jennifer L. Solotaroff and Rohini Prabha Pande, Violence against Women and Girls: Lessons

from South Asia (Washington, D.C., World Bank, 2014).

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There are also signs that the initiative may be changing the way in which women are

perceived within the factories. Since taking on the additional responsibility of

participating in anti-harassment committees, women have become a more vocal

presence on the factory floor. Whereas there were no women in supervisory

positions in some of the factories at the beginning of the project, increasingly

women have been promoted to supervisory roles.

IV. New partnerships in 2014

44. During the year, the Trust Fund strategically focused on expanding and

diversifying its range of donors to ensure the sustainability, reliability and growth of

its financial envelope. By fully harnessing the potential of new partnerships with the

corporate sector and with an immediate focus on fashion and the arts, the Trust Fund

was able to raise its visibility, extend its outreach and begin to build an individual

giving portfolio. In September, in partnership with the Trust Fund, Yuwei Designs, a

jewellery company based in the United States of America, launched an exclusive

jewellery collection to raise awareness of the strategies pioneered by Trust Fund

grantees to end violence against women and girls.

45. In November, in partnership with Music for Life International and the

UN-Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the Trust Fund hosted a

benefit concert in India as part of the Scheherazade Initiative, a global concert

project that brings together leaders in the artistic, musical, corporate and diplomatic

communities to raise funds for and increase public awareness of violence aga inst

women and girls. The Delhi concert featured the Trust Fund grantee Breakthrough

and included distinguished artists from the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

46. On 25 November, the Trust Fund launched a partnership with Soko, an ethical

fashion brand. This partnership will provide employment and training for

marginalized women artisans in Kenya to create a unique pair of bracelets. Every

bracelet sold will help empower an underprivileged artisan community

economically and, at the same time, support Trust Fund programmes to prevent and

respond to violence against women around the world. We Are {The Collective}, a

communications and marketing partnership based in London, conceptualized and

developed the global microsite for the Soko bracelet campaign and galvanized

support from the fashion sector in the United Kingdom.

47. The Trust Fund also launched a partnership with FASH UNITED, a California -

based non-governmental organization, to promote the Trust Fund ’s initiatives

through the fashion and entertainment sectors.

V. Eighteenth grant-making cycle

48. In 2014, the Trust Fund received 2,098 applications from 147 countries. Most

applications were from civil society organizations and the total funding requested

was more than $788 million. The Trust Fund awarded $8.3 million in 25 grants

covering 23 countries and territories. Twenty-two civil society organizations, two

Governments and the United Nations country team in Fiji received grants that all

together are expected to reach over 730,000 primary beneficiaries by the end of

2018. In terms of grant value, 28 per cent of the funds allocated went to

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programmes in Asia and the Pacific; 26 per cent to programmes in Africa; 14 per

cent to programmes in Europe and Central Asia; 12 per cent to programmes in Latin

America and the Caribbean; 11 per cent to programmes in the Arab States and North

Africa; and 9 per cent to cross-regional programmes. Grants amounting to some

8 per cent of the total ($700,000) were awarded to eight small organizations (those

requesting less than $100,000) as part of the Trust Fund’s new strategy to increase

funding to smaller grass-roots organizations.

49. Six new Trust Fund-supported programmes in the Gambia, Togo, the State of

Palestine, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will address harmful practices. These

covered a range of issues from legal initiatives to ban female genital

mutilation/cutting in the Gambia to community-based initiatives to end widowhood

rituals in Togo that put women at increased risk of HIV/AIDS.

50. New grantee programmes will also provide practical support to women and

girls experiencing violence. For example, in Tajikistan, the civil society

organization Najoti Kudakon will use community-based interventions to improve

access to services for rural women living in mountainous areas. The programme will

establish women’s support groups in underserved communities and enhance the only

existing safe house offering comprehensive services in the region.

51. Seven new grantees in Albania, Colombia, Egypt, Guatemala, Serbia, Thailand

and Zimbabwe will work to address and prevent violence against women who face

discrimination and exclusion. For example, in Colombia, the Organización Nacional

de Indígenas de Colombia (Indigenous Peoples National Organization) will

document and research violence against indigenous women, raise awareness among

the community and authorities, train indigenous women as rights advocates and

provide psychocultural, social, legal and psychological support to indigenous

women survivors of violence and their families.

52. Two new programmes will address violence against lesbian, bisexual and

transgender women. For example, in Thailand, the Rainbow Sky Association of

Thailand will implement a proven Community Life Competence model to empower

communities in four provinces to address issues of human rights, violence, stigma

and discrimination against lesbian and transgender women.

53. Five new programmes will bolster the implementation of laws and policies to

address violence against women. Among them is the grantee in El Salvador, the

Asamblea de Cooperación por la Paz (Cooperation for Peace Assembly), which will

work to improve the coordination and institutional response of relevant stakeholders

at the national and municipal levels and help local women’s and youth organizations

to develop their oversight and advocacy skills. The intervention will also seek to

strengthen existing national data-collection mechanisms, improve police response

and increase awareness of violence against women in schools and communities.

54. The Trust Fund will continue to support programmes in conflict, post -conflict

and transitional settings. Among the new grantees focusing on this issue is the Story

Kitchen, a women’s organization in Nepal, which will work towards ensuring access

to justice for women survivors of violence in conflict. In an innovative approach,

the programme will pair women conflict survivors with women human rights

defenders to reach more survivors through local radio networks, as part of efforts to

break the culture of silence around conflict-related violence against women.

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55. Other new Trust Fund grantees will up-scale and implement innovative

approaches for addressing violence against women. In Liberia, for example, the

Episcopal Relief and Development, a faith-based organization, will catalyse

Christian, interfaith and Muslim organizations to become agents of change, create

awareness of violence against women and girls in their communities and transform

beliefs and attitudes that legitimize and condone violence.

56. New grantees will also strengthen the capacities of journalists and the media to

raise awareness of the scale of violence against women and girls. In the State of

Palestine, the Community Media Centre will shed light on the pervasiveness of

violence against women in Gaza and advocate for the creation of policies and

procedures to protect women from violence.

VI. The way ahead

57. The year 2015 is a significant one for the Trust Fund and for global initiatives

to prevent and end violence against women and girls. Almost 20 years after its

creation, the Trust Fund will respond to the evolving context provided by the

post-2015 development agenda in setting a new course for the coming years that is

true to its founding vision and agreed commitments. As one of the structural causes

of gender inequality, violence against women and girls is interrelated with all

critical areas that are holding women and girls back — in the public or private

sphere — and therefore must be addressed as such. To that end the Trust Fund will

centre its efforts within this framework of intersectionality and the existing

obligations of States under international and national law and focus on

implementation at the national and local level.

58. The Trust Fund’s strategy for 2015-2020 will focus on three core areas of

work. Grant giving remains key and the Trust Fund will work to increase its grant

giving portfolio in 2015 to $18 million, specifically targeting giving by the private

sector and individual giving, as well as voluntary contributions by Member States.

59. The Trust Fund will aim to make an important contribution to evidence -based

programming on violence against women and girls, by developing a knowledge

management infrastructure that enables the unique body of knowledge and

experience built up by Trust Fund grantees to be shared and to grow.

60. The Trust Fund will also focus on reversing the worldwide chronic

underfunding of initiatives to address violence against women and girls by

providing leadership in global advocacy and calling for a significant increase in

global giving to this issue. The communications vehicle for this call will be the

United Nations Trust Fund’s global resource mobilization campaign which will be

launched in March at the fifty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of

Women.