Woman in the Dominican Republic protest against violence. Credit: IPS TerraViva

By Sabina Zaccaro

Say you are sitting in a country where there is an opportunity to develop a new law addressing violence against women, and you want to see what leading international legal experts on the issue have to showcase as model laws, and the lessons learnt and the challenges to keep in mind to enforce the law.

A new online resource is meant to serve as the go-to search engine to address the needs of policymakers, programme implementers and other practitioners dedicated to addressing violence against women and girls, by providing step-by-step guidance on ‘how to’ work with specific sectors, groups or areas of intervention. It has more than 600 features available in some 40 languages to ensure that practitioners have timely access to current information, knowledge and resources.

The Global Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls (http://www.endvawnow.org/) is an initiative of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), bringing together the valuable contributions of expert organisations and individuals, governments, United Nations sister agencies, and other actors.

“It is a unique key resource available to policy makers and practitioners from around the world to be able to access at the fingertips in one-stop shopping all the leading resources for implementation of programmes, services, policies and laws addressing gender-based violence,” Maria Jose Alcala, UNIFEM Senior Advisor on violence against women, tells Terraviva.

The resource has been developed by UNIFEM in partnership with leading experts from around the world, and leading organisations in specific fields of expertise.

“For example, if you want to know how to work with engaging men and boys on stopping violence against women, you can go to a particular module that has been developed by the leading experts in this field, and be able to download the key training programmes on how to work with boys so they learn non-violent behaviours,” Alcala says.

The context is the secretary-general’s campaign on violence against women “and the historic global opportunity we have in terms of global policy momentum. We have never had until a few years ago so much accelerated political will expressed at the highest level of governments, at the U.N., General Assembly resolutions now every year on intensifying actions to end violence against women.”