UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women gets $17 mln

The United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women has received $17.1 million in grants for 22 initiatives in 34 countries, including, for the first time, Iraq and South Sudan.

“Violence against women is a human rights and public health emergency,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director of UN Women.  “But, it is not inevitable. With sufficient political will, funding, and carefully developed and targeted programmes, violence against women can be significantly reduced.”

Programmes benefitting from funding include:

--Increased access of women survivors of violence to medical and legal services in Iraq

--Supporting HIV-positive women to counter stigmatization and abuse in Malawi

--Reducing workplace violence in garment factories in Bangladesh and India

--Accelerating the channels to health and justice services for violence survivors in Uruguay

--Assisting the American Refugee Committee to develop guidelines, with the government, for the management of rape in newly independent South Sudan

--Standardizing protocols for criminal investigation and police intervention in femicide in Mexico

--Engaging men and boys to prevent violence against women in Kenya, Rwanda and Sierra Leone

--Ensuring that religious courts apply the provisions of the Domestic Violence Eradication Act in Indonesia

The U.N. Secretary-General’s UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign has pledged to raise US $100 million for the UN Trust Fund’s annual grant-making by 2015.