UN TRUST FUND TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ANNUAL REPORT 2018

ROAD TO CHANGE 1
The United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) is
the only global grant-making mechanism exclusively dedicated to eradicating all forms
of violence against women and girls. In the 22 years of its existence, it has supported
493 organizations, investing in innovative and evidence-based civil society-led
solutions and life-changing projects. The projects it has funded focus on preventing
violence, implementing laws and policies to address and eliminate violence against
women and girls, and improving access to essential services for survivors. The UN
Trust Fund is managed by UN Women on behalf of the UN system and involves 24
UN organs and bodies in its decision-making processes through Regional and Global
Programme Advisory Committees (PAC).1

Snapshot of results

An update on the UN Trust Fund’s Strategic Plan Results Framework can be found
in the annex to this report. This report presents new data collected in 2018 against
targets set for that year and is a snapshot of some key outcomes detailed in the annex.
“I always think that my life is very sad
and I used to dream of having someone
help re-construct my life story… Now,
I feel my dream has come true when
[the project] helped to re-construct
and document my life story and I am
so excited.”
Seng Sopheap, age 67, a survivor of violence during the Khmer Rouge and participant in a project from
the Victims Support Section of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
4
FOREWORD 6

THE UN TRUST FUND IN 2018 8

1. INTRODUCTION 12
Supported by a network in the field 14

2. DELIVERING THE FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN 16

What grantees say about the UN Trust Fund 20

3. ACHIEVEMENTS IN 2018 22
Access to multisectoral services 25
Preventing violence against women and girls 28
Strengthening the implementation of laws, policies and national
action plans 33

4. LEAVING NO ONE BEHIND 36

Preventing and ending violence against women and girls in the
context of humanitarian crises 39
Preventing and ending violence against women and girls living
with disabilities 42
Preventing and ending violence against underserved groups of
women and girls 44

5. KNOWLEDGE, EVIDENCE AND RESULTS 50

New evaluation library 54

6. ADVOCATING FOR RESOURCES 56

Raising funds for life-changing work 60
Advocating to end human trafficking 62

THANK YOU 64

ENDNOTES 66

5
 “[Using our] voice against “Sisterhood for me is a human right
violence is the best solution”, and how we can help each other”, said
said Sunita Tunag2, a student Lana Kalad2 a beneficiary of a social
at the Shree Saraswoti Higher economic training programme from
Secondary School in Nepal in a Women for Women International in the
project with Skillshare Nepal. Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

“In my village, I will make sure that new “We could feel the political will, we
mums fight for their daughters, sisters could feel the support”, said Cecilia
and mothers", said Fatoumata N.2, a Chacón, the first female deputy prefect
peer educator of a project in Mali from in Tungurahua, Ecuador, about a
AMSOPT working to end Female Genital project from ACDemocracia ensuring
Mutilation/Cutting. access to justice.

6
“The struggle against a total system’s discrimination, stigma, coercion, abuse and
violence has never been most courageously undertaken by those empowered by it
or benefiting from that same toxicity. No! Always it has been, and still it is, the
strength, defiance and determination of those made casualty of such systems, and the
solidarity of civil society actors with them, that have been the more profound, more
transformative and more sustained forces for change”, said Kate Gilmore, United
Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, during the 2018 Disability
Summit in London (UK).

And last year alone was indeed full of examples that speak truth to this quote:
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee is
certainly one example. Or, the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize - awarded jointly to
Ms. Nadia Murad, a rights activist and Yazidi3 survivor of rape and captivity by ISIS,
and Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, for their contributions toward
ending sexual violence against women and girls in wartime. Or, the continued
influence of the #MeToo movement in so many parts of the world, which went global
as millions of women survivors and activists came forward to tell their stories. In Italy
it became #QuellaVoltaChe, in Spain #YoTambien, in France #BalanceTonPorc, in
Arab States #AnaKaman and in Latin America the movement continued to grow as
#NiUnaMenos.

What this really means, of course, is that 2018 witnessed the continued pandemic
of violence against women and girls. It also shows that the long-standing calls to
end it were garnering more visibility, largely due to the bravery of survivors, grass-
roots activists and movements around the world. While their names and their
contexts may differ across geographic locations, economic and social contexts; one
common theme runs deep: women and girls in every corner of the world continue to
experience extensive abuse and violence.

Our 2018 Annual Report aims to contribute to and amplify this chorus of global
voices. It aims to tell the story of the enduring work to end one of the most pervasive
human rights violations, and the never-ending commitment of those agents of
change who are challenging impunity and empowering survivors.

Aldijana Sisic
Chief, UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women

7
 A total of

7,885,356
PEOPLE
including women and girls, men and
boys, government officials and the
general public, were reached by
supported projects during the year.

8 9
THE UN TRUST FUND In 2018, the UN Trust Fund’s 21st At least
managed grant-giving cycle resulted in:

125
31 ORGANIZATIONS
in 25 countries and territories were awarded
384,823
women and girls
grants totalling $11 million in 2018.
projects
aimed at preventing and Of the 31 organizations receiving grants,
addressing violence against
women and girls in 28 are led by women,

identify as women’s rights

70 18 benefited directly from

organizations and
SERVICES
countries and territories 4 11 are small organizations.
EMPOWERMENT
ACTIVITIES

In 2018, the UN Trust Fund continued at least PROTECTION FROM VIOLENCE

to reach out to small and women-led DURING THE YEAR
organizations and to support projects
working to ensure efforts to prevent and
address violence against women and
1,530
women and girls with
girls "leave no one behind”. disabilities
At least

37 projects 8,107
indigenous women
supported by the UN Trust Fund including
focused on those women and girls who
have historically been marginalized and
underserved. Among those directly
7,718
refugee and internally
29,979
served by these projects were: survivors of violence
displaced women and girls
10 11
 1
12 © Robin Schmid - Women's Justice13 Initiative
Women's Justice Initiative course participants from the community
of Pachimulin, Guatemala.
 Gender-based violence against women and girls is a worldwide breach of human rights.
It cuts across all generations, social groups and geographical boundaries. As many as 70
per cent of women worldwide have experienced intimate-partner physical and/or sexual
violence in their lifetime.5 At least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone
some form of female genital mutilation or cutting in the 30 countries in which the practice
is most prevalent; in the majority of the cases, the girls were cut before the age of five.6
More than 750 million women alive today were married before they reached 18 years of
age and some 250 million entered into a union before they were 15.7

In recent years, an increasingly intense light has begun to shine on the many forms of
this entrenched, global human rights violation. Conversations about violence against
women and girls have permeated areas of public discourse from which they had long
been excluded. The UN Trust Fund grantees whose work is presented in this report
are among the millions of people engaged in their own national discourses around the
world on how to prevent, address and ultimately eradicate violence against women and
girls in their communities. Their assessment of how to best respond to this violence
and to bring about much-needed change is rooted in their knowledge of their specific
environment. The UN Trust Fund is uniquely placed to facilitate the sustainable
investment needed to support these crucial initiatives.

SUPPORTED BY A NETWORK
IN THE FIELD

UN Women manages the UN Trust Fund on behalf of the UN System and focal points
to the UN Women regional, multi-country and country offices support grantees in
fulfilling their accountability requirements to the UN Trust Fund. They are also often
in contact with grantees, along with UN Trust Fund portfolio managers.

With the strong institutional support of UN Women and working closely with the rest

24 of the UN system through the regional and global inter-agency Programme Advisory
Committees (PAC), the UN Trust Fund plays a vital role in driving forward collective
efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls. The Global PAC
UN organs and bodies
in its Regional and (GPAC) is chaired by UN Women and includes members of UN agencies and of civil
Global Programme society organizations (CSOs). They play a key role in the UN Trust Fund’s call for
Advisory Committees proposals, utilizing their expertise from a global array of UN agencies and civil society
(PAC). organizations to make the final assessment in awarding grants.

14
 © Chrispin Mwatat-IIRR
Participants in Kenya take part in an awareness
raising meeting as part of IIRR’s work to end
violence against women and girls in rural areas.

15
 2
16 17
© GAMCOTRAP
Participants, including Dr. Isatou Touray, take part in activities during the 16 Days
of Activism against Gender-Based Violence to advocate for an end to FGM/C.
 In 2018, the UN Trust Fund commissioned an independent external mid-term review
of its 2015-2020 Strategic Plan. The process involved a review of documentation
and 47 interviews with grantee organizations, current and potential donors, UN Trust
Funds’ GPAC members, UN Women and UN Trust Fund Secretariat staff, and a
number of women’s rights organizations.

The review found that the UN Trust Fund is on track to achieve the targets set out in
its Strategic Plan. In addition, the report concluded that the UN Trust Fund’s focus on
reaching and supporting small women’s rights organizations was widely valued and seen
as instrumental in efforts to “leave no one behind”.

The review noted that the UN Trust Fund has succeeded in increasing its level of
funding and attracting new donors, and provided some important insights about the
reasons for this success. Donors underscored the importance of the legitimacy of the
UN Trust Fund as an inter-agency, international UN fund and how this was seen as a
strong guarantee of accountability and transparency. For grantees, receiving funding
from such a reputable institution was seen as an important factor in increasing their
visibility and credibility, as well as their confidence to approach other funders. The
ability to strike a balance between the seemingly contradictory priorities of donors and
grantees was seen as one of the UN Trust Fund’s strengths.

Overall, the review found that the Strategic Plan 2015-2020 remains relevant in the
current landscape around ending violence against women and that the UN Trust Fund
has made significant strides in realizing its ambition to be “more than a donor”.

The UN Trust Fund is now in the process of looking at how to integrate the report
findings into the remaining period of this Strategic Plan and further into the future for
the next planning period.

“Continue being such a dynamic and enthusiastic organization and donor.”

Grantee

“The UN Trust Fund’s strength is the capability of giving grants: lots of

stakeholders are not able to live up to the accountability expectations that the
UN Trust Fund provides.”
Donor

“Being a UN Trust Fund beneficiary opens doors for us.”

Grantee

18
 © War Child Canada
Out of school girls attend classes for Arabic,
English, Math and Life Skills at a women's
centre run by War Child Canada in Jordan.

19
 In October and November 2018, as part of the mid-term review process, grantees in
all regions were asked to take part in a survey about their experience of partnership
with the UN Trust Fund. The 101 people who responded were overwhelmingly
from civil society organizations, although inter-governmental and governmental
organizations were also represented. The following highlights some of the key things
they had to say about the UN Trust Fund.

87% 84% 82%

agreed or strongly agreed that agreed or strongly agreed that said that what they had learned from
being a UN Trust Fund grantee being a UN Trust Fund grantee the UN Trust Fund will help them to
enabled their organization to enabled their organization to continue their work around ending
achieve results on ending violence generate knowledge and evidence violence against women and girls.
against women and girls. on what works to end violence
against women and girls.

72% 67% 67%

said they had used what they agreed or strongly agreed that being said that the evaluation requirements
learned from the UN Trust Fund a UN Trust Fund grantee enabled of the UN Trust Fund enabled their
in other projects. their organization to increase its organization to produce evidence of
chances of raising more funds. good practices on ending violence
against women and girls.

20
 In addition, as part of the UN Trust Fund’s Annual Partner Survey, 85 grantee
organizations reflected on their ability to raise further funds to prevent and
end violence against women and girls following their UN Trust Fund-funded
project.8 Grantees reported that 64 per cent had mobilized additional resources
in 2018: 54 organizations had mobilized a total of USD37.8 million.9 Of that,
USD8,166,226 was mobilized by 22 organizations to continue or upscale the
project funded by the UN Trust Fund.

92 per cent of grantees responding to the survey said they believed

that securing a UN Trust Fund grant will help their organization to
mobilize additional resources in the future.

“The [UN Trust Fund] is a highly professional organization in the area of gender-
based violence and having a project from them gives a high profile to the grantees.”
Grantee

MORE THAN “JUST A DONOR”

77 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly • The knowledge exchange events organized by
agreed that being a UN Trust Fund grantee the UN Trust Fund
responds to the needs of their organization
beyond funding. In terms of capacity building, grantees said that UN
Trust Fund support activities had most helped their
The most valuable elements of the partnership organization in the following areas:
with the UN Trust Fund, aside from funding,
highlighted were: • Project design and implementation

• The tools provided (such as the reporting • Project monitoring and evaluation
format, Results Framework)
• Financial management and budgeting
• Training sessions
• Ethics and safety protocols
• The reputation of the UN Trust Fund
• Expertise on ending violence against women
• The relationship with the UN Trust Fund staff and girls

21
 3
22 23 © NFFCK
NFFCK works with schoolchildren in remote villages in Kyrgyzstan on ending
violence against girls and preventing bride-kidnapping.
In 2018, projects implemented by UN Trust Fund grantees addressed a range of
forms of violence against women and girls in a variety of contexts

IN 2018, PROJECTS:

Reported or referred Enabled

6,706
cases
4,469
women
of sexual and gender-based to strengthen their capacities and
violence against women and girls skills to participate in the economy,
to state service providers. including as entrepreneurs as part
of efforts to enable them to escape
or prevent violence.

Provided free legal aid

or advice in cases of
violence to Ensured that

45,757
women and girls
135,665
women and girls
can demonstrate knowledge of at
least one available and accessible
service in their area that can
provide help in cases of violence.

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 “If you can bring people together and talk together
then you can make changes… Before [the] PHR training
we would all work independently and there was no
preservation of evidence… Now I feel an enormous
sense of pride when we are able to work together to
achieve a conviction.”
Kenyan senior magistrate, working with Physicians for Human Rights

25
 Increasing the access of women and girls to essential, safe and adequate multisectoral

36 services is one of the UN Trust Fund’s three priority areas. Many applications for funding
include some form of service delivery for survivors, including promoting and/or providing
services such as psychological counselling, medical care and shelters; enhancing access to
grantees that helped
justice through the provision of legal aid; and the training of service providers to improve
access to and the quality of services.

In 2018, the UN Trust Fund supported the work of 36 grantees that helped 22,383

22,383 women and girls to gain access to specialized support services.

In Viet Nam, the Institute for Development and Community Health used a UN Trust
women and girls.
Fund grant to work on preventing intimate partner violence against pregnant and
lactating women. During the three years the project was in operation, it reached 18,109
women and girls, including 3,433 pregnant and lactating women, in 10 communes in the
Kien Xuong district Thai Binh. Some 55 health-care volunteers and staff were trained to
dentify indicators of intimate-partner violence which resulted in identifying 898 cases

898 of such violence, of which 58 per cent were women who were breastfeeding and 42 per
cent were pregnant.
cases of violence.
In North Macedonia, the Women’s Forum-Tetovo is using a small grant from the UN
Trust Fund to implement a three-year project to provide survivors of domestic violence
with access to coordinated, multisectoral support services. Survivors of domestic violence
have been recruited to participate in the first cycle of workshops and the Women’s
Forum has worked to increase public information and initiate dialogue about domestic
violence in the Tetovo region. Various media materials to raise public awareness of
domestic violence have been published and have helped women to speak out against
violence and obtain access to services and support, as reflected in a significant increase in
the number of cases of domestic violence reported.

A project implemented in Armenia by the Women’s Support Centre focused on

preventing domestic violence and supporting survivors. Specialists trained through the
project provided counselling, shelter and support services to 443 women and girls, 41
of whom had sought refugee status or were internally displaced and 336 of whom were
survivors of domestic violence. The Women’s Support Centre held several meetings
with representatives of the Ministry of Justice and the Minister for Social Affairs
and provided information and feedback on best practices, in particular with regard to
managing a shelter for survivors of domestic violence. As a direct result of the project,
the Women’s Support Centre has also been approached by the police to help them with
the development of mechanisms and protocols to address domestic violence.

26
MULTISECTORAL COOPERATION IN ACTION
"There are victims who never came because they did meet the needs of survivors. Network members
not trust the whole system. But the way we learned and other trainees have identified a shift in their
to keep their confidentiality, welcome them, talk with provision of care to survivors.

them, it gives them trust. These victims go and tell the

Legal sector professionals have confirmed that
people in the community, and other people now come there have been significant changes in practices
to us. And this is a big thing, because there was this by medical professionals who have been trained
reinforcement of trust.” by PHR which have resulted in an increase of good
Law enforcement officer, DRC quality evidence reaching courts.

To improve and standardize documentation

In Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
practices, PHR developed new tools, such as a
(DRC), Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) received
medical certificate, and launched MediCapt – a
a UN Trust Fund grant to implement a project to
mobile application that digitizes forensic medical
address gaps in medical and legal processes for
forms and securely stores patient information.
survivors of sexual violence. The project, which
MediCapt was successfully piloted at Naivasha Sub-
began in 2015 and concluded in 2018, has enabled
Country Referral Hospital in Kenya and is currently
PHR to establish a foothold in both Kenya and the
in use with patients. It is being field tested in three
Democratic Republic of the Congo in prosecuting
facilities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
sexual and gender-based violence crimes through
with plans to pilot it with patients in the coming
strong training partnerships with medical, legal,
months at the Panzi General Reference Hospital.
and law enforcement sectors.
PHR is also in discussions with government officials
PHR has made significant progress over the past and other key stakeholders in Kenya, DRC, and
three years in deepening local capacity to use elsewhere to plan for sustainable scale-up. Finally,
forensic techniques to document evidence of sexual PHR deepened ties with existing networks and
violence and expand this work’s reach by engaging built a cohort of local trainers who can train others
with new communities. independently of PHR, which will carry this work
into the future. The project reached an estimated
Following PHR trainings, medical, legal, and law 83,107 survivors of violence through the work of the
enforcement professionals reported changes in 1,011 professionals who have been trained by PHR
behaviour at their institutions to better support and as part of the project since 2015.

27
 “I learned that no victim
of rape should be blamed.”
Sophia Ibechone, a member of the Wumba committee, Sexual Offences
Awareness and Victims Rehabilitation (SOAR) Initiative

28
 Preventing all forms of violence against women and girls is a key element of most
projects funded by the UN Trust Fund. For example, preventing intimate partner
violence is a central focus of 68 current projects in 45 countries and territories in which
the UN Trust Fund has invested a total of USD30,955,475.

The emphasis on making schools and other educational settings safe places for girls
reflects the importance of early intervention to effect change. In 2018, the UN Trust
Fund supported 17 grantees working to improve curricula or to implement policies,
practices or services aimed at preventing and responding to violence against women and
girls in 483 schools.

In Kenya, the organization Trócaire implemented a project focused on adolescent

girls and young women in eight informal settlements in Nakuru town to reduce
violence against women and girls through empowerment activities, including training
in fundamental rights, economic and vocational skills and fostering community-level
gender-transformative behavioural change using the SASA! faith methodology. Thanks

150
to this training, 150 adolescent girls and young women have embarked on 18 income-
generating business start-ups. The project engaged faith communities in dialogue on
the underlying causes of violence against women and in large-scale awareness-raising
adolescent girls and activities which reached over 3,500 people. In addition, more than 250 front-line
young women have workers from various sectors took part in capacity-building activities to provide
embarked on 18 effective and high-quality services and implement laws to prevent violence against
income-generating women and girls. At the end of 2018, 41 cases were ongoing in the justice system and
business start-ups. three convictions for sexual violence had been secured.

© Will Swanson - Trocaire

Members of Trocaire set up for a campaign
in Nakuru town, Kenya, to prevent violence
against women and girls.

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 HELPING FAMILIES BECOME VIOLENCE-FREE
The Mother and Child Education Foundation (AÇEV) advocacy events, creating new opportunities for
in Turkey has built on a previous project supported peer learning. More than 2 million people were
by the UN Trust Fund, Father Training for Violence- reached in 2018 with three advocacy campaigns:
Free Families, to translate improved attitudes into “The Fatherhood Comes First”, “No Place in My Love
gender-sensitive and non-violent behaviours within for Violence” and “I am a Father”.
families. The flagship Father Support Programme
(FSP) is a community-based, 10-week parenting AÇEV has made important progress to ensure

programme for fathers from disadvantaged sustainability by securing funds from various

backgrounds with children aged three to eleven. sources to continue the work achieved thanks to

Today, AÇEV stands out as one of the pioneering this project, including one from the European Union

institutions in engaging men in the promotion under its Civil Society Support grant scheme, which

of early childhood development and integrating is giving EUR143,550 for capacity building for

women’s empowerment and the prevention of the fatherhood initiatives. Funding of USD230,000

gender-based violence. is also being given from the UN Population

Fund (UNFPA) for a project entitled “Supporting
One of the unique outcomes of the project has been Fathers and Communities to Prevent Forced, Early
that participants have turned into active change Marriages (Child Marriage)” and the Generali
agents and social advocates. After graduating from Insurance Company has given over USD45,000 to
the programme, many fathers have become active AÇEV to conduct the FSP, Training of Trainers and
agents of change, forming or joining local father overall awareness raising on involved fatherhood
networks (more than 150 fathers have formed nine and advocacy work among company staff, as well
local networks); others provide support to local as distributors and customers.

© Burcu Atli - ACEV

Fathers take part in an activity to promote
non-violent behaviours within families in Turkey.

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 © Tanya Ghani - UN Trust Fund/UN Women
A women's support group in Rajasthan, India
discusses topics such as health, nutrition and ending
violence against women in a project by Pragya.

Preventing early and forced marriage was the focus of a project implemented in
Pakistan by the Sindh Community Foundation. The overall goal was to ensure that
girls in 30 villages in three districts of Sindh province were better protected from
forced early marriage. The final evaluation found that the project had increased
knowledge and shifted attitudes and had reached 3,915 primary and secondary
beneficiaries.

The Pragya project funded by the UN Trust Fund in India aimed to end violence against
women and girls through attitudinal change. Training, including gender-sensitization, was
provided for members of women’s groups, Panchayats (village councils), law enforcement
and civil society, to address deep-rooted gender norms in tribal societies and to empower
tribal women. As a result, more than 2,800 women joined 100 women peer groups in
five rural Indian states. Women involved with the project have reported increased levels
of confidence and self-esteem and show a high level of commitment to disseminating the
information they have received to other villages.

Malti Tudu is one such woman, who advocates for an end to early and forced marriage.
She belongs to a tribal community in which more than 70 per cent of women and girls
are married before the age of 18.10 She described the impact of the support of Pragya.

“Women’s groups are important avenues from which one can derive energy and
support to carry on. The training I received from Pragya helped me build my skills in
counselling and provide support to women and girls in my village… Sensitization is the
key to reducing such cases.”

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 CHANGING MINDSETS IN NIGERIA
“I am so very happy this project has come into our and schools to protect girls from sexual violence
community… my daughter was raped two years ago in two communities – Dutse and Wumba – in the
and I could not do anything about it because the municipal area of the capital Abuja.

person had more influence. I know your presence

Girls are playing a key role in determining what
will help the girls in this community, including my
the project needs to focus on. Ideas from girls
daughter.” involved in the project include establishing
Vincent A., a member of Wumba child protection community-based child protection committees to
committee
respond to sexual assaults, training girls who are

In Nigeria, violence against girls and early marriage in and out of school to assert their rights, creating

is prevalent; a 2018 UNICEF study found that 44 per a Kids Club as a safe space and teaching people to

cent of women married before the age of 18.11 recognize and report sexual abuse. Based on these
ideas, SOAR mobilized community members into
In 2016, in response to calls by the Nigerian child protection committees. These committees,
government for NGOs to set up efforts to prevent composed of 37 leaders from the community, have
and end violence against girls, the Sexual Offences already seen an increase in reporting of assaults
Awareness and Victims Rehabilitation (SOAR) on girls, indicating that it is addressing the lack
Initiative was launched, with funding from the UN of response mechanisms for survivors identified
Trust Fund. The project is mobilizing communities during the preparation of the project.

MISSIONS

Between January and December 2018, the UN Trust Fund team conducted 29 monitoring missions to projects
in 21 countries, eight of which were to provide training and support to small organizations.

One such visit was to a project implemented in Egypt by Al Shehab Institution for Comprehensive
Development supporting marginalized women who experience violence and/or are at risk of HIV infection.
A final evaluation of the project found that women’s understanding of personal and structural violence
had improved, as had their interaction with support services. By the end of the project, health-care, legal,
psychological and anti-violence programmes had reached 1,662 at-risk women in Cairo and helped to
bring about significant behavioural change.

32
OF LAWS, POLICIES AND NATIONAL ACTION PLANS

“The project gave us an opportunity to

explain what violence against women is like,
something we’ve been wanting to do for a
very long time….”
Participant in the project training Huánuco, as part of the project
from Red Nacional de Promoción de la Mujer

33
 © Robin Schmid - Women's Justice Initiative
A group of police officers show their certificates
after attending a training from WJI in Guatemala.

The UN Trust Fund is currently investing USD11 million in supporting at least 21 grantees
working to bring legislation into line with international human rights standards; ensure
laws, regulations and protocols to end harmful traditional practices are implemented; and
encourage States to fulfil their obligation to exercise due diligence in order to prevent
violence, protect victims and ensure their right to justice.

In Guatemala, the Women’s Justice Initiative (WJI) used a small grant from the UN Trust
Fund to implement a project to improve access to justice for Mayan women and girls in 18
rural communities in the Patzún municipality. Although the government has put in place laws,
policies and plans to combat violence against women and girls and strengthen institutional
responses, reaching women in rural areas has been one of the greatest challenges.

1,043
During the three-year project, 1,043 Mayan women and girls in 16 communities
graduated from the legal literacy course. More than 40 per cent of course participants
began to exercise their rights by seeking legal assistance from WJI. The number of
Mayan women and referrals almost doubled between the first and third year of the project, ensuring that
girls in 16 communities more women received comprehensive legal services and so increasing the likelihood
graduated from the of better legal outcomes. The project proved a springboard for further initiatives. For
legal literacy course. example, in July 2018, WJI received a small grant from Partners Asia for USD10,000
to support a technology pilot in four communities to test using tablets and video calling
to connect WJI’s lawyers and paralegals to women in remote communities. In addition, in
December 2018, the WJI received a small grant of USD14,000 from the Global Fund
for Children for efforts to prevent and address child marriage.

In Serbia’s northern Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, the Provincial Secretariat for

Health, Social Policy and Demography led the implementation of a three-year project that
began in 2015 to improve service delivery and institutional responses to sexual and gender-
based violence against women and girls. The project contributed to raising the capacities
of institutions by conducting a three-day training for a total of 1,547 health professionals

34
 from 73 institutions; delivering 62 days of training for 1,215 people working in the system
for protecting women from sexual and gender-based violence (more than three times
the number originally envisaged); launching seven centres providing new and improved
services in health institutions that served 100 victims. Beneficiaries who attended
the centres highlighted the importance of psychosocial support and the provision of
information. A final evaluation indicated that the average satisfaction of women who
were in the system of protection rose by 25 per cent between 2016 and 2018.

LEARNING FROM SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE

IN CAMBODIA
“I have hidden my story for many years since I was to participate in court hearings and forums. The
forced to marry my husband… Now, I have understood project also interviewed 80 survivors of forced
the impacts on my mental health and started to share marriage about discrimination against them in

my story with my family and neighbors.” their communities and found that discrimination
has decreased significantly since the project began
Keo Peoun, a survivor of violence from the Khmer Rouge
regime in 2011. The change is attributed to a growing
understanding of, and empathy towards, survivors.
From 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge subjected
women and girls to sexual and gender-based Survivors are encouraged to participate and speak

violence, including systematic forced marriage and in public to share their stories with the community

rape, in Cambodia. Beginning in 2011, the UN Trust and with the younger generation through forums,

Fund funded a project implemented by the Victims radio shows and intergenerational dialogue.

Support Section of the Extraordinary Chambers in These events have made many participants feel

the Courts of Cambodia to promote gender equality empowered to transform their experiences of

and improve access to justice for women survivors suffering into lessons learned for the country’s future.

of violence under the Khmer Rouge. An external

“I always think that my life is very sad and I used to
evaluation of the project found positive results and
the potential for significant impact in the long term.
dream of having someone help re-construct my life
Recognizing the potential for sustainable results, the story… Now, I feel my dream has come true when
UN Trust Fund is currently funding a second phase of [the project] helped to re-construct and document
the project to build upon the achievements of the first, my life story and I am so excited.”
as part of the UN Trust Fund’s invitation only window. Seng Sopheap, aged 67

In 2018 alone, during the second phase of funding, The Victim Support Section is also increasing the
the Victims Support Section has already supported sustainability of reparations projects and raised
546 women survivors of violence, including women USD5 million for additional work with Khmer Rouge
from minority groups and from remote provinces, survivors, including survivors of forced marriage.

35
 4
36 © Monika Husar 37Tokin - MDRI
A service provider and beneficiary embrace at an MDRI training
to prevent and end violence against women with disabilities in Serbia.
 “I used to think a woman’s place is at home, but since coming here I changed my
thinking. I’ve seen the difference as well in women attending the skills classes,
and so I’ve brought my friends and family here. I want to share what I’ve learned
with others.”
Hamoud, a refugee from Syria who took part in the classes run by the Arab Women’s
Organization

Supporting organizations working to ensure progress towards the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, and to “leave no one behind” is an important focus for the
UN Trust Fund. Among the groups of women and girls that have most often been left
behind are survivors of violence in humanitarian situations; women and girls living with
disabilities; lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex women; and women living with
HIV/AIDS.

The UN Trust Fund is currently investing more than USD15 million in projects to
end violence against marginalized women and girls. It has also established two special
funding windows in the past two years: one focusing on refugee and forcibly displaced
women and girls in the context of humanitarian crises, and the other on women and
girls living with disabilities. The special windows are designed to enhance the focus on
and increase funding for the work on violence against underserved women and girls
who are exposed to multiple forms of discrimination and whose specific needs and
issues are often left out of policy discussions and are heavily underfunded.

© Wesal Abdulla/AWO
An awareness session held by AWO in Jordan
which is inclusive of women and girls with
disabilities.

38
AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS
IN THE CONTEXT OF HUMANITARIAN CRISES

“With the help of a legal counsellor and classes at the centre, I feel confident
about myself and my future.”
Noura, who fled Syria with her six children and receives services at an Arab Women’s
Organization women’s centre in Jordan

Women represent almost half of the 258 million migrants and half of the 25.9 million
refugees worldwide.12 During times of emergency and in fragile settings affected
by humanitarian crises, women and girls are at a heightened risk of violence.13 In
recognition of this, since 2017, the UN Trust Fund has supported projects under a
special funding window aimed at preventing and ending violence against women and
girls in the context of the forced displacement and refugee crises. Focusing on longer-
term needs and finding durable solutions, the UN Trust Fund has sought to contribute
to bridging the humanitarian and development divide and to encourage localization
specifically in addressing the issue of violence against women and girls.

The second year of the window saw an increased number of requests for funding in
this area: 112 organizations applied in 2018 compared to 83 proposals in 2017. The UN
Trust Fund awarded USD2.5 million to five new projects under this window in its latest
funding cycle.

Grants awarded in 2018 under this window include:

• an initiative by the women-led organization Fundación Centro de Derechos Sociales

de la Persona Migrante which is using a small grant from the UN Trust Fund to
address violence against women and girls who have entered Costa Rica from
neighbouring Nicaragua.

• a project in Kenya, implemented by the Refugee Consortium of Kenya, a woman-

led organization, working with Somali refugees in the Nairobi and Garissa areas,
many of whom have been there for almost two decades, to improve the access of the

39
 survivors to justice by working with the courts, which include police officers, health
workers and officers of the court.

• the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee started implementing a project in six

communities in area C of the West Bank, State of Palestine, focusing primarily on
women and girls who are displaced or at risk of being displaced. The project is aimed
at addressing the gaps that hinder the access of at-risk women to justice by working
with formal and informal justice workers.

More than Jordan is one of the countries most affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria.
More than 666,000 Syrian refugees registered by the UN High Commissioner for

666,000 Refugees are living in the country.14 Around 80 per cent of Syrian refugees in Jordan
live in urban settings alongside the Jordanian population, rather than in camps, and the
vast majority are living in poverty.15 This is putting considerable strain on over-stretched
Syrian refugees
registered by the UN services and also means that refugee women and girls are often missing out on many
High Commissioner specialized services available to refugees living in camps.
for Refugees are living
in Jordan. The UN Trust Fund’s grantee Arab Women’s Organization (AWO), an Amman-based
local NGO, opened and runs two new women’s centres where Syrian refugee women and
Jordanian women alike have access to support services, including case management, legal
consultations, referral services and skills training.

In these safe spaces, AWO has already provided 2,352 women with information about
their rights, violence against women and the risks of early marriage; provided vocational
and literacy skills training; and run awareness-raising programmes for men and boys
about gender equality, gender roles, violence against women and women’s rights. The
skills classes are also promoting social cohesion between the local Jordanian population
and Syrian refugees by ensuring all sessions are composed of mixed groups. So far, 700
Jordanian and Syrian men and boys have participated in awareness raising workshops
about violence against women, non-discrimination, and alternative models of masculinity.

Another project in Jordan supported by the UN Trust Fund is being implemented by

War Child Canada. This project focuses on improving access to quality community-
based protection and support services for isolated women and girls at a heightened risk
of violence. War Child Canada ensures that non-Syrian as well as Syrian refugees have
access to the community-based protection services. Through surveys and feedback
mechanisms, War Child Canada was able to capture that three quarters of women and
girls who enrolled in the programmes are feeling safer, better protected from violence and
aware of their rights and how to ensure they are upheld. Twenty outreach volunteers, from
the Jordanian and Syrian communities, have been trained on making appropriate home
visits to continue conversations on accessing services for survivors of sexual and gender-
based violence, women's rights and referral pathways. By the end of 2018, the project had
reached over 1,500 women and girls in the areas of Nuzha and Sahab.

40
 Three projects were implemented in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq with funding under this
window. In Duhok, the Free Yezidi Foundation enrolled 288 women and girls in trauma
and mental health therapy sessions for survivors of violence. The Foundation’s centre
also ran music, art and language classes to reduce stress and train women to prepare
for employment. These Yezidi Harikaras (Yezidi Helpers) provide awareness training to
the community. In 2018, Free Yezidi Foundation reported that it reached an additional
605 women and girl refugees and asylum-seekers and further mobilized 16 members of
community-based organizations and 20 education professionals. A 74 per cent increase in
well-being and reduced trauma symptoms were reported in those who received services.

In Duhok, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, a project implemented by ASUDA for

Combating Violence against Women reached 653 Syrian women through workshops
on legal aid and other services including psychosocial and referral services. Eight
additional workshops reached 159 men and boys to raise awareness about violence
against women and how men and boys can help end such violence.

The third project supported in Iraq, implemented by Women for Women

International (WWI), focused on social and economic empowerment. In 2018, WWI
reported having benefitted an additional 100 refugee and internally displaced women
and girls seeking asylum.

THE ORGANIZATION RED NACIONAL

DE PROMOCIÓN DE LA MUJER - PERU
A project in Peru, the organization Red Nacional As a direct result of the project’s implementation,
de Promoción de la Mujer, is implementing a older women are now part of community
project in the regions of Ayacucho and Huánuco surveillance committees and the municipalities’
aimed at reducing gender-based violence against roundtable on poverty reduction. In addition,
older women who were victims of conflict-related four emblematic cases of violations of women’s
violence in the 1980s and 1990s. The project has rights were reviewed and, to date, one case
empowered more than 487 women, of whom 44 per has been decided in favour of the survivor; the
cent were over 60 years of age, by increasing their remaining three are pending decisions. The
awareness of their rights. Training on women’s rights, grantee has also been able to mobilize additional
gender and violence was delivered to 415 women resources to continue to implement some of the
and peer-group sharing enabled the training to core areas of this project beyond the life of the
benefit 527 women from a range of organizations. UN Trust Fund grant.

41
 AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS
LIVING WITH DISABILITIES

© Mildred Garcia -
UN Trust Fund/UN Women
FUSA participant Daniela Elizabeth Giuliana,
presents UN Women Executive Director
Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka with a book during
a visit to the project in Argentina.

Worldwide, women and girls with disabilities face a risk of rape that is almost three times
greater than that faced by women and girls in general, are twice as likely to experience
other forms of gender-based violence and are more likely to suffer more severe injuries
“I have the same rights. Thank and more prolonged abuse.16
you to the UN for teaching me
In 2018, the UN Trust Fund announced the creation of a special thematic funding
what my rights are”
said Daniela Elizabeth Giuliana, a
window for projects to address violence against women and girls with disabilities. In its
participant in a project from FUSA first year, it received 173 applications from 69 countries and territories under this window
in Argentina.
requesting a total of USD64 million.

In July, the UK Department for International Development, the International Disability

Alliance and the Kenyan Government co-hosted the Global Disability Summit in
London, UK. This focused on key issues facing women and girls with disabilities including

42
 stigma and discrimination, inclusion in education, routes to economic empowerment, and
harnessing technology and innovation. At the Summit, the UN Trust Fund announced
that nine new grants had been awarded for projects under this window worth a total of
These projects USD2.9 million. These projects are expected to reach around 8,000 women and girls
are expected with disabilities in five regions of the world, as well as around 90,000 other people
to reach around including government institutions, men and boys and the public by the end of their three
years of implementation.

8,000 Among the new projects awarded grants under this window are:
women and girls with
disabilities in five • a project in Cambodia implemented by the UK-based Action on Disability and
regions of the world. Development (ADD) International working in partnership with local women’s and
disabled persons’ organizations to strengthen the capacity of disabled women’s
networks to lead primary prevention efforts;

• a project in the State of Palestine implemented by the Stars of Hope Society to

improve access to essential, safe and adequate multisectoral services for women and
girls with disabilities in the West Bank and Gaza;

• a project in Rwanda implemented by the Rwanda Organization of women

with disabilities (UNABU) to reduce economic and sexual violence among this
particularly at-risk group in five districts;

• a project implemented by the National Union of Women with Disabilities of Uganda

to reduce violence against women and girls with disabilities in the Amuria district in
the Eastern Region of Uganda; and

• a project in Kenya implemented by Women Challenged to Challenge to reduce

violence against women and girls with disabilities and increase the rate of conviction
of abusers.

The organization Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe was also invited to submit a
second proposal for funding based on the impact and learning potential of an earlier
project. The second generation of the project will focus on six rural and underserved
districts in Zimbabwe with high rates of poverty and HIV/AIDS and which reportedly
have very high incidences of sexual violence against girls and women with disabilities. The
project will replicate existing strategies to provide practical assistance to women and girls
with disabilities, enhance their access to justice in cases of sexual violence and build the
capacities of key service providers. A new aspect introduced with this project is a focus
on working with the Ministry of Health and Child Care to standardize and decentralize
psychiatric assessments. This is a direct result of lessons learned in the first project, which
found that the legal requirement to travel to Harare for psychiatric assessment was a
significant barrier to justice.

43
AGAINST UNDERSERVED GROUPS
OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

“I support IIRR in ending violence against women and girls. Let us stop FGM and
discrimination among women. It is the first organization to ever penetrate through
villages to meet women like me and teach. Thank you IIRR, because of you, I now
have courage to report cases.”
Mama Rose Lekirpini from Sordo Village of Wamba-Samburu County, Kenya

Although women in rural areas play an important role in their communities,

they often have limited access to resources and have greater difficulty than men
in gaining access to public services, social protection and decent employment
opportunities.17 This group of historically underserved women is the focus of
several projects supported by the UN Trust Fund.

For example, a project implemented by the International Institute of Rural

Reconstruction in Kenya focused on ending early marriage and female genital
mutilation in rural communities. It sought to improve the implementation of
laws and policies designed to address these and other harmful practices and end
violence against women and girls. The approach adopted, entitled “Learning
our way out”, involved training local community-based facilitators to lead
conversations with small groups, helping friends and neighbours to recognize the
link between gender-based discrimination and women’s rights and socioeconomic
situation. In addition, the project worked to build a community-based referral
system and to link survivors to legal support, medical services, psychosocial
therapy, shelter and protection.

44
 An end of project evaluation found that:

37% 68.2%
of survivors of sexual gender-based of women and girls felt safe from
violence surveyed felt that there were FGM, forced marriage and other
adequate support services, compared forms of sexual gender-based violence,
to none at the start of the project. compared to 35 per cent at the start of
the project.

92% 50%
of women and girls were aware of the of women/girls were aware of response
violations against girls and women mechanisms to violence against
compared to 40 per cent at the start women and girls in their community
of the project. compared to 33 per cent at the start
of the project.

45
 © Robin Schmid - Women's Justice Initiative
A participant in WJI's project to improve access
to justice for women in Patzun, Guatemala.

Lesbian, bisexual and transgender women are another key group at risk whose
needs have historically been underserved and need to be addressed if the goal of
leaving no one behind is to be achieved. In 2018, the UN Trust Fund awarded a grant
to Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (Empower Malaysia) to provide both
cisgender and transgender women with the language, tools, know-how and support to
counter sexual and gender-based violence in Malaysia. The project, implemented in six
states, employs a mixture of research, documentation, monitoring, advocacy, capacity
development, awareness-raising, networking, support and institutional strengthening
to highlight and address the way sexual and gender-based violence are used to prevent
women from participating in the public and political spheres.

Indigenous women and girls are among the world’s most underserved populations
and, worldwide, often experience high levels of violence, including femicide and
disappearance.18 Intersecting discrimination results in a life of extreme poverty,
including limited access to legal and social services, for many indigenous women and
girls. In 2018, three new projects focusing on the needs of indigenous women and girls
were awarded grants totalling USD925,922 by the UN Trust Fund. They included
Coordinadora por los derechos de la infancia y la adolescencia, a network of 30 civil
society organizations in Paraguay, which is using a small grant from the UN Trust
Fund to defend, promote and monitor the human rights of girls. Its particular focus
is women and girls with disabilities from rural and indigenous communities who face
discrimination and social and economic exclusion, have little or no access to education
and health services and, consequently, are at a heightened risk of violence in the home,
the community, schools and public spaces, as well as of human trafficking.

46
 © Gemma Wood -
UN Trust Fund/UN Women
A local women's NGO trained
by AALGBT Albania.

47
 RAISING VOICES, CHANGING POWER,
SHARING KNOWLEDGE
“I came to understand violence against women does not only
concern women, but it concerns men as well...”
A community activist in Haiti

Raising Voices, a Uganda-based NGO, is the originator of the

successful SASA! methodology. This approach aims to change
social norms by addressing the imbalance of power between
women and men – a key driver of violence against women. It
walks communities through a step-by-step process, engaging a
critical mass of people across all levels of society to bring about
change.

The first project funded by the UN Trust Fund enabled Raising

Voices to support organizations across eastern and southern
Africa to implement SASA!. An evaluation revealed a significant
reduction in the rates of physical intimate-partner violence: one
community in Uganda using SASA! reported a 52 per cent lower
rate of intimate partner violence than control communities. This
success was built on with a second UN Trust Fund grant through
the invitation only window for a project in which Raising Voices
worked with three partner organizations – in Haiti, Tanzania
and Kenya – to study adapting the methodology to suit different
contexts.

In Haiti, Beyond Borders involved community members to

translate, adjust and adapt the images and activities to ensure
they represented Haitian culture, while keeping with the
original intent of SASA!. Beyond Borders is currently continuing
this work through a grant from the UN Trust Fund to ensure that
the adaptation of SASA! is inclusive of women and girls with
disabilities.

48
In Tanzania, the Women’s Promotion Centre translated and
adapted materials to ensure they were appropriate for people
living in rural Tanzania, with constant feedback from the
community. Implementation of the methodology altered norms
around gender roles, educated women on their right to live free
from violence and led to a decrease in violence.

“This programme is very important because it challenges us... People

realize, ‘I don’t have to mistreat my fellow [community member] and
nobody has to mistreat me’.”
A member of the SASA! Network

In Kenya, the International Rescue Committee’s work led to the

development of a new toolkit for adapting SASA! in humanitarian
settings.

Today, more than 60 organizations – including NGOs,

governments, UN agencies and faith-based groups – are
implementing the SASA! methodology in over 20 countries.

© Beyond Borders
Gislaine St. Fleur takes part in a technical
implementation session of SASA! in Haiti.

49
 5
50 51 Soccer
© Jaco Roets - Grassroot
Girls soccer team during an Intergenerational Tournament, which is part of a
project to prevent violence against girls through sport in South Africa.
 The UN Trust Fund continued to support its grantees to generate evidence and
knowledge. Improved and updated evaluation guidelines for grantees on managing
mandatory final independent evaluations were rolled out in 2018. The UN Trust Fund
Secretariat provided quality assurance support for grantees managing 27 final project
evaluations in 2018. This included online webinar training, email support and coaching
and review of evaluation terms of reference, inception, draft and final reports.

The UN Trust Fund continued to provide annual capacity development training for
new grantees. A 10-week online mandatory project management training course
included sessions on project design, monitoring and evaluation, financial and operation
management and ethics and safety. The course is open to new UN Trust Fund grantees
and their implementing partners and offered as a refresher training for all current
grantees. By the end of 2018, 123 people from 31 organizations were signed up to
attend this training.

© YK Sandhya - SAHAYOG
Participants learn about gender-based
violence through a game in India.

52
LINKING EVALUATIONS AND SUSTAINABILITY
In Liberia, Episcopal Relief and Development As a result of the success and learning potential
implemented a three-year project that worked generated by the project, the organization was
with faith-based groups to address violence invited to submit a new proposal under the UN
within the family and community in six districts Trust Fund’s “by invitation only” window. The new
in Cape Mount and Rivercess counties. The final project includes: expanding the faith-leader toolkit
evaluation of the project found that there had been for preventing and responding to gender-based
a significant reduction in reported violence by violence; further developing the facilitation guide
intimate partners (down to 5 per cent from 14.8 per to help empower Christian and Muslim faith leaders
cent) and non-partners (down to 2.6 per cent from to speak out against violence against women and
16.1 per cent). A very high number of faith leaders support survivors more effectively; and expanding
(97 per cent) who participated in the project had youth engagement work. Continued engagement
spoken out against gender-based violence at with members of the Inter-Religious Council of
various events. Liberia and the Ministry of Gender, Children and
Social Protection will also help ensure the progress
made by the project is sustained.

The UN Trust Fund has made a commitment to create platforms through which grantees
can share lessons learned. To that end, in September 2018, the UN Trust Fund held a
five-day event in Amman, Jordan, to facilitate learning and knowledge exchange between
current and new grantees on addressing violence against women in the context of the
current refugee crisis. Among those who attended, were participants from eight NGOs
from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, the State of Palestine and Serbia.

This knowledge-exchange workshop enabled grantees to access training to address

programmatic and operational gaps in capacity, exchange learning and document
knowledge in a format that can be used for both internal and external purposes.
Among the key aspects of humanitarian work explored included: accountability to
affected populations, needs assessments, response coordination, impartiality and non-
discrimination, keeping populations safe from harm, “building back safer” and looking
after oneself as a humanitarian worker.

In their feedback on the event, most participants provided positive qualitative

comments on the types of information learned. They reported that new knowledge
was gained that could be applied in their own work and key lessons and solutions were
highlighted for follow-up to document practices in a manner that can be shared,
applied and tested further.

53
 A new grants evaluations library went live on the UN Trust Fund’s public website in
2018. So far, 40 project evaluations have been posted to the public website, enabling
the findings to be shared with practitioners and partners around the world.

The evaluation library is an important step forward in realizing the larger UN Trust
Fund endeavour to build an evidence and learning hub by 2020 to catalyse and
harness the depth of knowledge and lessons learned through the work of its grantees
and contribute to the evidence base on ending violence against women and girls.

The following are a sample of the projects whose final evaluation reports can be found
on the Learning Hub on the UN Trust Fund's website.19

© Puspa Pokharel - Restless Development

A peer education group is held in Nepal to end
the harmful traditional practice of chhaupadi.

54
SNAPSHOT OF EVALUATION RESULTS
In Tunisia, Fondation CIDEAL Tunisie implemented A cross-regional project to prevent gender-based
a project to improve service delivery, strengthen violence implemented by Promundo in Rio de
the institutional response to domestic violence Janeiro (Brazil) with its implementation partner
and enhance the prevention of violence through HEAL Africa in Goma and Sake City (Democratic
community mobilization and public awareness Republic of the Congo) provided group education
raising (with a focus on men and boys). The and counselling to foster healthy, non-violent
final evaluation concluded that, as a result of the attitudes and behaviour among adolescent girls
project, 442 women survivors and those at risk and boys in school settings. A final evaluation
of domestic violence had been provided with found that the project developed a unique model
integrated care and guidance services. to break the inter-generational transmission
of violence in conflict and violence-affected
Restless Development implemented a project in settings. In Brazil, female participants reported a
two regions of Nepal to reduce the incidence 28 per cent decrease in verbal and psychological
of the harmful traditional practice of chhaupadi, violence. In the Democratic Republic of the
which includes forcing women and girls to sleep Congo, over 40 adolescents and girls received
in a hut during menstruation. The final evaluation counselling and participants reported that they
found that the project had significantly decreased had gained confidence and self-esteem.
the incidence of the practice. It reached 45,990
women and girls, far exceeding its target of In El Salvador, Asamblea de Cooperación por la
28,000, and the proportion of women and girls Paz implemented a project in 13 municipalities to
who slept (or who were forced to sleep) outside address violence in the context of relationships,
in a hut fell from 19.4 per cent to 5.5 per cent in as well as femicide and violence in institutions
the areas in which the project was implemented. or public spaces. A final evaluation of the
project found that approximately 20,000 people
The Azerbaijan Young Lawyers’ Confederation had received information about women’s
implemented a project for women and girls in the right to live free of violence; two thirds of all
Absheron region of Azerbaijan. A final evaluation of the prioritized municipalities approved
found that the project had established a model plans to prevent violence against women;
to provide support and referrals to survivors of inter-institutional municipal networks for the
gender-based violence; 448 women received prevention of violence against women had been
support, nearly double the target number; created in all the prioritized municipalities; and
over 100 women participated in economic women survivors interviewed said that access to
empowerment training, of which nearly a third specialized care units had allowed them to break
went on to set up their own business; 10 staff at the cycle of violence and receive quality care.
the shelter were trained by international experts; Importantly, the project enabled women and
and thousands of people attended information young people to increase their participation in
sessions on the causes and consequences of local decision-making.
gender-based violence.

55
 6
56 © Wesal Abdulla - Arab Women's57 Organization
A trainer holds a session for young girls at an Arab Women's
Organization women's centre outside Amman, Jordan.
 AS PART OF THE UN TRUST FUND’S
ANNUAL PARTNER SURVEY

85 grantee
organizations
reflected on their ability to raise further funds to prevent and
end violence against women and girls following their UN Trust
Fund-funded project

GRANTEES REPORTED THAT

64%
had mobilized additional resources in 2018

54
organizations
Of that

$ 8,166,226
had mobilized a total was mobilized by

$ 37.8
million.
22
organizations
to end violence against to continue or upscale the project
women and girls funded by the UN Trust Fund

58
Securing sustained and increased funding to prevent and end
violence against women and girls remains at the core of the
UN Trust Fund’s efforts. The UN Trust Fund has continued to
use its unique convening power to host events and support
opportunities to advocate for change and draw attention to the
need for resources. By showing how the funds it raises enable
its grantees to deliver on specific programmes of work and
by sharing knowledge and expertise on effective strategies
to prevent and end violence against women and girls, the
UN Trust Fund aims to increase the visibility of the work of
grantees on the ground, as well as to provide its grantees with
much deserved recognition.

59
 “The long-term test for all of us is not whether we bring down a few powerful men, but
whether we ensure we do not let down and leave behind millions of women and girls
around the world. We now have an opportunity to build on the courage of survivors
in the wake of the #MeToo movement, born in this very city, and demonstrate the
systemic nature of violence against women and girls.”
Aldijana Sisic, Chief of the UN Trust Fund

In December, in Santa Monica, California, the crucible of the #MeToo movement,

UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman and UN Women Executive
Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka co-hosted an event to raise funds for the life-
changing work of UN Trust Fund grantees.

One of the stories of resilience shared at the event

was that of Alice Mathe, read by the actor and
activist Gabriella Wright. Alice Mathe is a young
woman survivor of violence from Zimbabwe who
is deaf. She was able to access support through
a project implemented by Leonard Cheshire
Disability Zimbabwe, a UN Trust Fund grantee,
which provides practical assistance for survivors of
violence with disabilities. The support of Leonard
Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe meant that Alice
© Kyle Espeleta - UN Trust Fund/UN Women
Mathe was able to take her attacker to court; he is Actor and activist Gabriella Wright narrates the story of a beneficiary of
a grantee of the UN Trust Fund, Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe,
now in jail. working to end violence against women with disabilities.

60
 “When I became UN Women’s Goodwill
Ambassador some time ago, I met with women
and girls who had survived violence and who
were supported by the UN Trust Fund to End
Violence against Women. I saw first-hand the
real difference it makes in the lives of women
and girls. I’m here today to continue this work
and amplify the voices of women survivors
through the media and help raise significant
funds for programmes that address this issue.”
UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman’s speech at
the UN Trust Fund’s fundraising luncheon. At the event, Nicole
Kidman announced she was donating USD500,000 to the UN
Trust Fund.

© Kyle Espeleta - UN Trust Fund/UN Women

The event brought together survivors, activists, dignitaries, UN officials, gender experts
and Hollywood celebrities. Centre stage at the event were the voices of #HearMeToo.
In 2018, the UN theme for the United Nations Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End
Violence against Women campaign for the International Day for the Elimination of
Violence against Women on 25 November and the 16 Days of Activism was: “Orange
the World: #HearMeToo”. This sought to amplify the voices of women and girls around
the world who have survived violence or who strive to defend women’s rights, most of
whom carry on their vital work far from the limelight or media headlines.

The event celebrated the ground-breaking initiatives supported by the UN Trust

Fund across the world over the past 22 years and highlighted the work that remains
to be done to eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls.

61
 In September, Her Royal Highness Princess Eugenie of York (United Kingdom) visited
two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Serbia, ATINA and ASTRA, who
received UN Trust Fund grants for projects to support survivors of human trafficking.

The visit provided an opportunity for Princess Eugenie, a supporter of the UN Trust
Fund and co-founder of the UK-based Anti-Slavery Collective, to talk to activists
about their work.

“I believe in being an advocate for the amazing work that organizations like ASTRA
and ATINA are doing with the support of the UN Trust Fund and learning from them.
Collectively we can end human trafficking and violence against women. Coming together
for a common goal can affect change and motivate people to be a part of that change.”
HRH Princess Eugenie of York

© Maja Medic - UN Trust Fund/UN Women

HRH Princess Eugenie of York visits a
reintegration centre of UN Trust Fund
grantee, ATINA, to learn about their project
to prevent trafficking in the context of the
current humanitarian crisis.

62
 © Maja Medic - UN Trust Fund/UN Women
Marija Andjelkovic, ASTRA Executive
Director speaks with HRH Princess Eugenie
of York about ASTRA's work supporting
survivors of violence.

“We accompany the survivors throughout the process, in their interaction with the
institutions, such as police, social services, all the way to the court process… The UN
Trust Fund helped us build the effective [referral] systems for the state to specialist
service providers.”
Marija Andjelkovic, Executive Director of ASTRA

“ATINA created the project for women and girls affected by the refugee crisis to
provide support to victims of gender-based violence, understanding that refugees are
disproportionately discriminated compared to citizens. So, we started to advocate
towards the government to push the boundaries in providing help for refugee women
survivors of trafficking and those at risk.”
Jelena Hrnjak, Programme Manager of ATINA

The UN Trust Fund has supported 16 projects aimed at ending human trafficking,
implemented by civil society organizations worldwide.

63
 The UN Trust Fund thanks its partners who provide the resources that enable us to
support the creative projects put forward each year and to pursue our mission and
work towards a world free of violence against women and girls.

As of December 2018, the Governments of Australia, Austria, Hungary, Ireland,

Israel, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Trinidad
and Tobago, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the
United States of America had contributed to the UN Trust Fund’s twenty-second
grant-making cycle.

Support was also received from the UN Women National Committees of Germany,
Iceland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as from the UN
Women for Peace Association.

Our private sector partners who contributed to the UN Trust Fund in 2018 were:

A&E TV NETWORKS / MAHENDI / SOKO / VIACOM

Big thank you to all

individuals around the
world who contributed
to the work of the UN Mahendi SOKO
Trust Fund in 2018.

64
 © Kyle Espeleta - UN Trust Fund/UN Women
UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Nicole
Kidman spoke at the UN Trust Fund fundraising
luncheon in Santa Monica, California.

Special thanks to HRH Princess Eugenie of York and Ms. Nicole Kidman
for their commitment and contributions to our work in 2018.

© Maja Medic - UN Trust Fund/UN Women

HRH Princess Eugenie of York and
Ms. Aldijana Sisic, Chief of the UN Trust Fund
enter ATINA's reintegration centre,
which complements other services ATINA
provides in Serbia.

65
ENDNOTES
1. In 2018, members of the Programme Advisory Committee at 8. Conducted in 2019, reporting on 2018 activities.
the global and regional levels included the: Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; International 9. 54 out of 85 who responded.
Labour Organization; Office of the Special Representative of
the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict; United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; United Nations Development 10. Mamta Health Institute for Mother and Child (2013).
Programme; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization; United Nations Population Fund; United Nations 11. http://evaw-global-database.unwomen.org/en/countries/africa/
Children’s Fund; United Nations Entity for Gender Equality nigeria#4.
and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women); United
Nations Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict; Office of the 12. United Nations, International Migration Report 2017 – Highlights,
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; International available at http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/
Organization for Migration; World Food Programme; and World migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2017_
Health Organization. Intergovernmental organizations and other Highlights.pdf.
experts at the global and field levels, including representatives from
the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership, Equality Now and the
Sexual Violence Research Initiative, were also actively involved in 13. United Nations, International Migration Report 2017 – Highlights.
the grant-making process.
14. http://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20
2. Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individual. Jordan%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20June%202018.pdf.

3. The United Nations uses the spelling “Yazidi”, and a grantee of the 15. http://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20jordan/
UN Trust Fund uses the spelling “Yezidi”; both are used in this report. images/publications/2018/refugee%20crisis/refugeecrisis-jordan-
final2.pdf?la=en&vs=2207.

4. Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan,

Belarus, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, 16. Stephanie Ortoleva and Hope Lewis, “Forgotten Sisters – A
China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Report on Violence against Women with Disabilities: An Overview
Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, of Its Nature, Scope, Causes and Consequences”, Northeastern
Fiji, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Jordan, Public Law and Theory Faculty Research Papers Series, No. 104
Kenya, Kosovo (under Security Council resolution 1244 (1999)), (Northeastern University, Boston, 2012).
Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali,
Marshall Islands, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, 17. United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on the
Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Status of Women, Report of the Secretary-General, Challenges and
Peru, Republic of Moldova, Rwanda, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Solomon opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment
Islands, South Sudan, the State of Palestine, Tajikistan, Thailand, of rural women and girls, 12-23 March 2018, (E/CN.6/2018/3);
Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Republic of and Report of the Commission on the Status of Women Report on
Tanzania, Uruguay, Viet Nam, Zambia and Zimbabwe. the sixty-second session (24 March 2017 and 12–23 March 2018),
paras 1-40, (E/2018/27).
5. World Health Organization, London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine and South African Medical Research Council, Global and 18. United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on
regional estimates of violence against women: prevalence and health the Status of Women, Report of the Secretary-General, Review
effects of intimate partner violence and non-partner sexual violence and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration
(Geneva, World Health Organization, 2013). and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third
special session of the General Assembly, 9-20 March 2015, (E/
6. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Female genital CN.6/2015/3).
mutilation/cutting: a global concern (New York, 2016); and
A/71/209, para. 15. 19. http://untf.unwomen.org/en/learning-hub/evaluations.

7. UNICEF, Ending child marriage: progress and prospects (New York, Please note, $ signifies United States Dollars.
2014).

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NY 10017, USA
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