WUNRN
END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN -
MONITORING & NATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Regular and participatory government-led assessments at the national and local levels, in partnership with women’s and other civil society organizations, serve to ensure that policies and programmes work as intended and highlight opportunities for improvement. (Council of Europe, 2008; UN General Assembly, 2006)
These assessments might include:
Anti-violence policies and programmes should have clear targets and timelines so that their effectiveness can be measured and assessed.
National monitoring efforts should also be linked to periodic State Party reporting obligations to the CEDAW Committee and other international treaty bodies.
The following checklist includes key elements for promoting national accountability to end violence against women (extracted from the National Accountability Framework to End Violence against Women and Girls, UNIFEM, 2010. Available in English, French and Spanish):
1. Are various forms of violence against
women and girls addressed?
Violence against women and girls occurs in both private and public spaces. It
takes many forms, ranging from domestic abuse to rape, psychological torture,
trafficking, sexual exploitation and harmful practices, among others. Acts of
violence take place in a variety of settings (households, streets, schools,
workplaces, conflict situations) and affect a cross-section of groups
(including rural/urban, rich/poor, young/adult, migrant, displaced, indigenous,
disabled and HIV-positive women). Ensuring effective responses requires that
laws, policies, services and data collection efforts recognize and address the
different manifestations of violence and tailor strategies accordingly, based
on an understanding of the specific contexts in which they occur.
2. Are data collection, analysis and dissemination systems in place?
Developing workable policies, programmes and responses depends on reliable
data. This includes information on the prevalence, causes, survivors and
perpetrators of violence against women and girls; the impact of
interventions and the performance of the public sector in terms of,
for instance, health service access, police and judiciary responses; the attitudes,
behaviours and experiences of men, women and young people from different
population groups, and how they perceive the issue in their society;
and the social and economic costs of violence against women and girls.
Such data are essential for measuring the progress of anti-violence
initiatives, developing effective strategies and allocating budgets.
3. Do policies and programmes reflect a holistic, multisectoral
approach?
Addressing violence against women and girls requires a multi-dimensional
response involving government agencies, non-governmental organizations and
other entities from various sectors and disciplines. Beyond the institutions
that have primarily been involved in these efforts (e.g., health, public
security, legal, ministries of women’s affairs), other key actors—such as
educational institutions, employers, labour unions, the media, ministries of
finance, and the private sector as part of corporate social
responsibility—should be included. Interventions need to be composed of both
services and referral systems for the survivors/victims of violence, as well as
broader prevention efforts focused on social and community mobilization for
‘zero tolerance’ and gender equality. Holistic support means
addressing the full range of needs and rights of women and girls, which
includes ensuring safety, health services, legal and judicial remedies, and
economic security for themselves, their children and other dependents.
4. Are emergency ‘Frontline Services’ available and accessible?
Survivors of gender-based violence require immediate ‘frontline’ support from
the police and health and legal aid providers. As larger-scale and longer-term
responses are developed, all countries should ensure that minimum standards
to meet emergency needs are satisfied. (UNDAW, 2008) Subject to national
context, these should include: ensuring the safety and adequate protection of
survivors/victims; universal access to at least one free national 24-hour
hotline to report abuse and life-threatening situations that is staffed by
trained counsellors who can refer callers to other services; one shelter for
every 10,000 inhabitants that provides safe emergency accommodation, qualified
counselling and other assistance; one women’s advocacy and counselling centre
for every 50,000 women that offers crisis intervention for survivors/victims;
one rape crisis centre for every 200,000 women; and universal access to quality
post-rape care (including pregnancy testing, emergency contraception,
post-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV and treatment for sexually transmitted
infections, treatment for injuries and psychosocial counselling). These
services should not be conditional upon the survivor/victim’s reporting
violence to the police, and they should be followed by longer-term health,
legal, psychosocial, educational and economic support.
5. Is national legislation adequate and aligned with human rights
standards?
Laws and their enforcement are essential to ending impunity. They set the
boundaries for public norms and behaviours. They affirm the rights that all
people are entitled to enjoy and delineate the duties and obligations of those
charged with their protection. Laws to stop violence should be comprehensive
and work to prevent, respond to and punish all forms of violence against women
and girls. The human rights of women and girls must be placed as the paramount
concern of all laws, policies and programmes—including their rights to personal
security, privacy and confidentiality, informed and autonomous decision-making,
to health and social services, and to justice. This also entails legal
provisions safeguarding certain rights that might determine whether a woman is
enabled to leave an abusive situation, namely, women’s rights to child support
and custody; economic, property, land and inheritance rights; and nationality
and immigration status. Whether formal or customary systems of justice prevail,
they should uphold the human rights of women and girls. Laws and their enforcement
should comply with international and regional human rights standards, as set
forth in various conventions, agreements and mechanisms.
6. Do decrees, regulations and protocols establish responsibilities and
standards?
Explicit standards should be established for the implementation and monitoring
of laws, policies and programmes through various instruments and procedures
that reinforce and institutionalize them. Presidential or ministerial decrees,
for example, can bolster implementation by assigning specific roles and
responsibilities to the relevant ministries. Protocols, both within and across
sectors, can provide critical guidance to officials and service providers and
set operating and performance standards. These standards can also serve as
benchmarks for tracking progress and accountability and for introducing
improvements. Protocols and procedures should be aligned with available
internationally adopted and recommended human rights and ethical and service
delivery standards.
7. Is there a National Action Plan and are key policies in place and
under way?
National Action Plans devoted to addressing violence against women and girls
can be valuable instruments for setting in place the institutional, technical
and financial resources required for coordinated, multisectoral responses. They
can establish mechanisms for accountability and can clarify institutional
responsibilities. They can also serve to help monitor progress towards specific
targets. Ministries charged with coordination (often women’s machineries) need
political support at the highest levels of government, as well as adequate
institutional and financial support to carry out this complex task effectively.
Ensuring that actions to address violence against women and girls are
integrated into other leading policy and funding frameworks can also provide
strategic venues in which to strengthen efforts and secure budgets. Examples of
these include poverty reduction and development strategies and national plans
and sector-wide reforms related to education, health, security, justice, HIV
and AIDS, and peacebuilding and reconstruction in post-conflict situations.
8. Are sufficient resources regularly provided to enforce laws and
implement programmes?
Policies and laws are too often adopted without adequate funding being provided
for their implementation. Budgets should be assessed to make sure that they
meet the needs of the population, adequately serve impoverished geographic
areas and ensure equity, and benefit the women and girls they are intended to
serve. Financial considerations should be based on costing and should include
seemingly peripheral but crucial considerations, such as free medical and legal
aid and transportation support so that women and girls can access legal and
other services, as well as support for their socio-economic reintegration.
Financial assistance to survivors/victims can be made available through
innovative schemes, such as trust funds to which both the State and other
actors (individuals, organizations and private donors) may contribute.
Resources should be made available to ensure the capacity development of the
various sectors and professionals that bear responsibility for enforcing laws
and implementing programmes. Adequate public funding should be allocated to
non-governmental organizations and women’s groups, lead sources of expertise
and services for survivors/victims for their work and contributions.
9. Are efforts focused on women’s empowerment and community
mobilization?
Too often, there is a tendency to ‘supply’ policies and services, without
adequately engaging the public through empowering approaches that enable people
to ‘demand’ and access those services and to seek accountability. Real and
lasting change to end violence against women and girls should be focused at the
local and community levels, where acts of abuse occur and are too often
tolerated. Strategies should empower women and girls to demand their rights to
justice, protection and support; provide them with knowledge of their rights
and their government’s obligations; and ensure collaboration with women’s
centres and advocacy groups, as well as youth, men’s and other organizations
committed to gender equality. Mass public education and awareness-raising
campaigns on the issues, including through local and national media, are
important elements. Community mobilization on gender equality and non-violence
is essential to stopping violence against women and girls, especially among
men, young people, faith-based and other strategic groups.
10. Are monitoring and accountability systems functional and
participatory?
Regular and participatory government-led assessments at the national and local
levels, in partnership with women’s and other civil society organizations,
serve to ensure that policies and programmes work as intended and highlight
opportunities for improvement. These assessments might include annual progress
reports to parliament by sectoral ministries, the establishment of national and
local observatories, independent oversight mechanisms such as ombudspersons,
collaboration with the media to disseminate information on progress and
shortcomings, and periodic evaluations of the enforcement of laws and
implementation of programmes. Anti-violence policies and programmes should have
clear targets and timelines so that their effectiveness can be measured and
assessed. National monitoring efforts should also be linked to periodic State
Party reporting obligations to the CEDAW Committee and other international
treaty bodies.
For monitoring reports, see:
The CEDAW country reports and CEDAW Committee Concluding Observations
The CEDAW shadow reports produced by non-governmental organizations
The Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its Causes and Consequences country visit reports
National observatories on violence against women from around the world.
See the Tools Section of the Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls.