Ending violence against women is at the heart of the mandate of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The international community has an unprecedented opportunity to make meaningful progress in tackling this universal human rights violation. Within this context, UNIFEM has developed its Strategy 2008-2013 to end violence against women and girls, an overview of which is presented here.

Afghanistan Women’s Network, a coordinating network of over 70 women organizations and groups, and more than 3000 individual members was established following the 1995 Beijing +5 conference, in Pakistan. Since then, the network has been actively involved in women empowerment, activism for women’s rights, addressing child protection at the local, national and international arenas. The member activists of the network, have been struggling hard for the realization of women’s rights as defined in national and international commitments of the Afghanistan government as well as within the Afghan society.

Human Rights Now (herinafter, HRN) conducted a survey on violence against women in Cambodia in March 2010 under the ‘Violence against Women Project’. The survey was carried out after the adoption of the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of Victims (hereinafter ‘DV Law’) at the National Assembly of Cambodia in October 2005, focusing on the situation of domestic violence. Although five years have passed since the introduction of the DV Law, this law is yet to be widely used to provide enough protection for women. It has not been fully enforced. The judiciary who is responsible for the enforcement of the law and women themselves do not completely understand the law. As a result, the legal system is not able to prevent domestic violence and provide adequate protection.

The present situation in Timor Leste can only be understood in the historical and cultural context of prior political subjugations. Gender violence is a domestic and community reality in Timor-Leste. This paper gives an in-depth analysis of the DV and SGBV outstanding issues, challenges, development and prospects. For the world’s newest nation, much progress has been made in legislation promulgated since the restoration of independence in 2002. Now the need is for these various platforms of action to be pervasively socialised with all the citizens of Timor-Leste and for sustainable funding to be made available to achieve these goal. Despite these problems Timorese women have been granted legal empowerment and so been given hope for a better life.

Launched in 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign is a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls in all parts of the world. It was developed to support and strengthen efforts in the region to end violence against women and girls. Asia-Pacific UNiTE aims to raise public awareness and to increase political will and resources for preventing and responding to violence against women and girls in the Asia-Pacific region. The campaign seeks to create a favourable and supportive environment for governments, in partnership with civil society, experts, entities of the United Nations system and other stakeholders to fulfill existing policy commitments.

Violence against women and girls is a global pandemic of alarming proportions, deeply rooted in gender inequality and discrimination. No woman or girl is entirely free of its risks or reach. It takes many forms and occurs in many places — domestic violence in the home; sexual abuse of girls in schools; sexual harassment at work and in public spaces; abuse during pregnancy; and rape in cities and in rural areas, in refugee camps and as a tactic of war. It includes harmful practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting, child and forced marriage, so-called ‘honour’ killings, acid attacks and dowry-related abuse; as well as newer forms, such as cyber-bullying and e-stalking via the internet and mobile phones. This fact sheet documents the scale of the pandemic.

This Handbook is based on the results of an expert group meeting on good practices in national action plans on violence against women. The meeting was convened by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women, UN-Women, in cooperation with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, in September 2010.

The advancement of women has always been central to our pursuit of national peace and reconstruction. From the Bonn Agreement to the Constitution, Afghanistan Compact and Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy (I-ANDS), we have remained steadfast in our commitment to pursue gender equality and the empowerment of women in all spheres of life. As articulated in the I-ANDS, it is the goal of Government to eliminate discrimination against women, develop their human capital, and promote their leadership in order to guarantee their full and equal participation in all aspects of life.

As gender equality improves, the prevalence of violence against women is lower. Data available shows the inverse relationship between gender equality and violence by an intimate partner. This is borne out for both physical and sexual forms of abuse. Countries with greater equality between women and men tend to have lower levels of violence against women, based on the leading global indices for gender equality. These measure equality based on: life expectancy; sex ratio at birth; adult literacy; primary, secondary and tertiary education enrollment rates; participation in the formal labour force; estimated earned income; wage equality; shares of seats in legislative, ministerial and senior political positions; and shares in management and technical positions.