2005 Trust Fund Grantees
In 2005, the Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence Against Women made 24 grants — a total of US$1.8 million — to groups in developing countries that are working to end gender-based violence in their communities. This year's grant cycle also included an "HIV/AIDS window" for proposals that targeted the linkage between gender-based violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS.
MALI – Centre DJOLIBA
National Coalition to Combat Excision
In Mali, for over 25 years a growing number of organizations, government officials and international agencies have been working to abolish the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), through creating a national network of NGOs to raise public awareness of FGM as an act of violence against women, and getting the government to adopt an action plan and prohibit the practice by people in the medical profession. According to Trust Fund grantee Centre DJOLIBA, the time is ripe to bring diverse communities together from various government ministries, civil society, and very importantly, traditional and religious leaders, to develop sustainable partnerships that foster the dialogue that can lead to changing practices and attitudes.
NIGERIA – Women Aid Collective (WACOL)
Implementing Policies and Laws in Anambra, Bayelsa and Edo States
In three of Nigeria's states, laws specifically prohibit certain gender-based violence such as female genital mutilation (FGM), trafficking, discrimination against widows, and guarantees the right to maternal health services. What's lacking is knowledge and commitment from the various service providers—from the police, to health care workers, to magistrates — to provide gender-sensitive services that effectively protect women's rights, according to the law. Women Aid Collective (WACOL) is working to change this by supporting appropriate services for women in government agencies and in civil society organizations, building a coalition to strengthen the implementation of the laws.
SWAZILAND – Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGGA)
Popularizing the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill
Women in Swaziland who experience violence or rape cannot currently find appropriate justice for the crimes committed against them, since the country lacks comprehensive legislation to address violence against women. The Swaziland Action Group against Abuse (SWAGGA) is dedicated to changing this reality, and with the help of partners from civil society, from the UN, and from the Government — including The Royal Swaziland Police — a draft sexual offences and domestic violence law now exists Funding from the UN Trust Fund will help SWAGAA push ahead with a public advocacy campaign to make the proposal law, and to raise the quality of services available for victims.
TANZANIA – Kivulin and IOFA
Prevention of Adolescent Trafficking
Preventing trafficking of adolescents is the focus of the Trust Fund award winning project Kivulin, based in Mwanza, Tanzania, and its partner organization IOFA, based in the United States. While the Tanzanian law prohibits all trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor, young people are attracted by the false promises of jobs and income and too often fall victim to unscrupulous traders in human beings. Young people need to know their rights, and learn how to evaluate alleged job recruitment through educational materials, community leader and parental involvement.
BHUTAN – National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC)
Creation of Women-Friendly Police and Judicial Procedures in Bhutan
In Bhutan, violence against women still hides in domestic spaces, and women's complaints of abuse are too often muffled in silence. The National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC) intends to alter this situation by making the judicial system more transparent and accessible to women, changing the way police and the judiciary respond to cases of violence through training, filming court procedures, and raising awareness.
CAMBODIA Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre (CACC)
Implementing Law on Prevention and Protection of Domestic Violence
Cambodians, now emerging from the legacy of the Pol Pot genocide, are working to confront issues of gender and violence by providing a legal framework. The recent passage of a law on Prevention and Protection of Domestic Violence presents an opportunity to the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre (CACC) to use a Trust Fund grant to ensure through public awareness campaigns, training of volunteers to provide counselling and legal aid, that Government strategies are put in place to make the new law meaningful and deliver on its promises.
PAKISTAN – War Against Rape (WAR)
Providing Medico-Legal Services for Victims of VAW
Data and knowledge are critical components to develop effective strategies and programs that prevent gender-based violence and provide targeted assistance to victims. In Pakistan, the organization War Against Rape (WAR) is striving to collect a comprehensive database on the response of the medical and legal system to sexual violence cases. The project will review complaint and treatment records in five major cities, analyze the results and their implications, and widely share their findings.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA – International Women's Development Agency (IWDA)
Reducing Violence against Women
To protect women from violence in Papua New Guinea (PNG) where the problem has reached a crisis, the International Women's Development Agency (IWDA) received a Trust Fund grant to strengthen justice and recourse for women through building responsive and gender-sensitive policies and practices within the PNG police. In addition to the police training, the project will strive over the long term to change attitudes and culture within the police and the community about women's rights to life free from violence.
FYR OF MACEDONIA – Association of Citizens Akcija Zdruzenska
Establishing Unified and Positive Practices in Combating Domestic Violence in Macedonia
In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia fundamental legislative and judicial change has brought the domestic violence issue onto the national stage through new provisions within the Criminal and Family code. The challenge for the Association of Citizens Akcija Zdruzenska lies in translating the law into effective and consistent practices nationwide by forging a partnerships with key government agencies, networks of service providers, and outreach to the public.
TAJIKISTAN
Association of NGOS on Gender Issues and Prevention of Violence Against Women
Implementation of Chapter on EVAW of National State Program
This broad-based NGO consortium in Tajikistan will focus on implementing the country's designated law on ending violence against women, which is part of the National State Program on Ensuring Equal Rights and Opportunities of Women and Men for 2001-2010. Working together, the groups will involve key elements of Tajikistan's society that includes representatives from government, law enforcement, civil society, crisis centers, and health and social services to create strong and sustainable partnerships that promote women's equality and equal rights.
BRAZIL CRIOLA
Iya Agba Black Women Network against Violence
Racial discrimination against black women in Brazil marginalizes their access to the rights and legal protections that are starting to gain a foothold in that country. CRIOLA, which works to combat racism and violence against women, will use the Trust Fund grant to work with seven partners to organize the Black Women Network against Violence to advocate for women's rights in the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, and to study the impact of violence against black women.
COLOMBIA – Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho, ADEICON and TEKNOS
Prevention of VAW in the Atlantic Department
While the violence against women in Colombia mounts, information from the Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho, ADEICON and TEKNOS indicates that in the Atlantic Department in northern Colombia, 78 per cent of the victims never report the crime. The organizations' strategies to make change happen include building public awareness through targeted material produced for TV and the media, and putting in place a training school to create a network of counsellors for the prevention of violence.
DOMINICA – Women's Bureau and the National Council of Women (DNCW)
Employing an Integrated, Coordinated, Multi-Sectoral Approach to Effectively Respond to Violence against Women and Girls and Domestic Violence in Dominica
While Dominica's laws promise justice for victims of gender-based violence, the actuality leaves those promises unfulfilled. The Women's Bureau and the National Council of Women (DNCW) are joining forces, gathering partners from the Government, police, men's organizations, legal aid and other significant civil society actors, to forge a holistic approach, integrating raising public awareness; improving services; reviewing existing laws to assure they have the required resources; working with youth and men's groups, law enforcement and the judiciary.
Regional: CENTRAL AMERICA and the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Fundación Justicia y Género
Implementing Domestic Violence Laws
Across Central America and the Dominican Republic, domestic violence threatens too many women and families. The Fundación Justicia y Género plans to apply a regional analysis of the laws in place, monitor the application of the statues in domestic violence case, and gather data and statistics to build an evidence-based assessment of the performance of the judicial component.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Mouvement pour la Jeunesse Congolaise HIV
Assistance to Women and Girl Victims of Violence and HIV/AIDS
Southern Kivu, located in the eastern part of the DRC, is an area plagued by conflict. Serious violations of human rights committed against the civil population by armed groups have been denounced by the international community, but continue unabated. The project aims to address violence against women and girls and its link to HIV/AIDS by providing them with medical, psychological, social and legal assistance for their social rehabilitation.
SOUTH AFRICA – The Mothertongue Project
Gender-Based Violence and HIV Transmission Arts Project
Mothertongue has planned an arts-based project that focuses on the role of gender-based violence in the transmission of HIV in South Africa. The organisation will use participatory art forms such as community theatre workshops to involve audiences in order to increase public awareness and encourage public action.
UGANDA – Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP)
End Violence against Women Project
CEDOVIP will conduct public awareness activities around the linkages between VAW and HIV/AIDS, and work to ensure that local institutions dealing with these issues have policies and practices in place to promote women's human rights and protect them from violence and infection. In particular, they will target the police force, training police officers to effectively implement new violence against women policies. CEDOVIP will also conduct seminars with local councils, and community leaders, such as traditional marriage counsellors (ssengas), to raise awareness about domestic violence, leading eventually to the drafting of a by-law that is well-supported by traditional institutions.
INDIA – Positive Women Network
Stop Violence
Because of the deep sense of stigma attached to women living with HIV/AIDS, many often also suffer from violence at the hands of their families when their status is known. The project addresses the right of women living with HIV/AIDS to access health care, medical and legal services and to own property, aiming particularly at reducing discrimination and violence within the families of women living with the disease.
VIETNAM -Vietnam Handicraft Research and Promotion Centre
Prevention of HIV/AIDS in Hatay Province
Domestic violence and HIV/AIDS are increasing in Hatay province, located in the western part of Vietnam's capital, Hanoi. Community organizations and health service providers, along with other sectors, are working to identify and respond to women who experience violence, through counselling and medical treatment, including treatment for sexual and reproductive health problems, and referrals for other needed services. The project seeks to increase women's access to care, and knowledge of their rights.
NEPAL – Semanata Institute for Gender and Equality
Empowering Nepali Women and Girls through Increased Awareness about Violence Against Women, Reproductive Rights and HIV/AIDS
Nepali women and girls are increasingly vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS and STDs/STIs from employers and clients in work places such as restaurants, massage parlors, and liquor stores. Migrant women workers are also facing an increasing incidence of infection from their employers abroad. The project intends to raise awareness about VAW and HIV/AIDS among both migrant women workers, and conflict affected/displaced women and girls who are at risk in their work place.
SAMOA – Samoa AIDS Foundation
Theatre: A Dynamic Tool for Changing Awareness about VAW and HIV/AIDS
Samoa has a strong theatrical, dance and oral tradition where potentially sensitive subjects can be aired publicly in a non-threatening way. The project will use theatre to change public perceptions about VAW and HIV/AIDS, particularly the importance of ending violence as a means to control the spread of HIV/AIDS. Theatre programs will be conducted in high schools and universities in urban and rural areas throughout Samoa.
HAITI
Vizyon Dwa Ayisyen (VIDWA) and its subsidiary, Komisyon Fanm Victim Pou Viktim (KOFAVIV)
Responding to the HIV/AIDS Threat to Rape Victims in Poor Communities
Very few services or programs exist for victims of rape in Haiti, and those that do are not designed to overcome the barriers that prevent women living in areas with high levels of violence from accessing care and support. The Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV), a group of survivors of rape from the 1991-94 military coup d'état, came together to respond to the urgent needs of women victims and to bring national and international attention to the violations being perpetrated against them. The project will incorporate HIV/AIDS education into support groups and forums for victims. It will also support the development of community-based committees to organize around the issue of HIV/AIDS and its link to violence.
MEXICO – Centro de Investigación en Salud de Comitán AC (CISC)
Gender-based Violence and HIV/AIDS in Multicultural Contexts
The project will identify perceptions around gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS among young, rural indigenous women in the border region of the state of Chiapas, to determine the particular socio-cultural factors that could increase the vulnerability of abused women to contracting HIV/AIDS. The information will be provided to local health and education authorities and community groups, and used to design culturally appropriate intervention strategies.
PERU – Asociación Minga Perú
Intercultural Educational Radio Project to Fight Violence and HIV/AID
The project will take place in the Amazonian region of Loreto, which ranks as the region with the second largest number of cases of HIV/AIDS in Peru. The rates of unemployment, malnutrition, unhealthy living conditions and illiteracy in Loreto are among the highest in the country. Rural women in the region have an average of 7 children, although in some communities the number could reach 14 children per woman. Minga Peru has been broadcasting intercultural radio programs for the last 7 years to rural communities in the region. One out of every three people who listen to Radio Loreto tune into their program — 70 per cent of these are women. The project will use radio programs to focus attention on decreasing the incidence of violence and HIV/AIDS, and involve radio staff and school teachers in educating youth on these issues.