INTERNATIONAL DAY TO ELIMINATE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN TO BE COMMEMORATED AT HEADQUARTERS, 22 NOVEMBER

Note to Correspondents

INTERNATIONAL DAY TO ELIMINATE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

TO BE COMMEMORATED AT HEADQUARTERS, 22 NOVEMBER

The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) will host an event on 22 November, from 1:15 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Dag Hammarskjöld Auditorium, to recognize the efforts of community groups working to end gender-based violence around the world.  The event will announce this year’s grantees of the UNIFEM-managed United Nations Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women, and hear the personal stories of two grantees from previous years who are working in Darfur, Sudan, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

The programme highlights the need to build on progress made in laws and policies on ending violence, by focusing on their implementation.  At least 45 countries have adopted legislation to prohibit domestic violence, while 20 more are drafting new legislation or amending criminal assault laws to include domestic violence.  Implementation tends to lag, however, seriously impeding or even reversing any progress made.

Speakers at the event will include Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al'Hussein, Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Sichan Siv of the United States Mission; Stanislas Kamanzi of the Rwanda Mission; and Dr. Victor Ortega, Deputy Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in New York.  Representatives from Zonta International and Johnson & Johnson, both first-time contributors to the Trust Fund, will also participate in the programme.

The UNIFEM event is a part of the global 16 Days of Activism Campaign that begins on 25 November and concludes on 10 December each year.

For more information, contact Leigh Pasqual at tel: 1-212-906-5463, e-mail: leigh.pasqual@undp.org.

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For information media • not an official record