16 March 2006 - UN visitors available from 2pm Monday 19 March - see contact numbers below)

Appealing to the good in cultures is effective way to
curb violence against women: UN director

A deep understanding of local cultures is of key importance in designing and implementing programs to curb violence against women, according to Sultan Aziz, Director of the Asia Pacific Region of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Mr Aziz and the UNFPA Representative in Fiji, Mr Najib Assifi, will visit Australia next week (20-23 March) to meet parliamentarians, senior AusAID personnel, diplomats, representatives of NGOs and academics .

Mr Aziz says cultural understanding can often enable designers and implementers of programs to identify humane and positive values inherent to the culture that can be emphasised when "sensitizing" host communities to the harm caused by rape and other forms of sexual violence.

For example, before beginning a program in Samoa, UNFPA conducted a comprehensive study in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) which showed that 46.4% of the 1212 women interviewed had experienced some form of violence in the relationship that they were in or had been in.

Following this study UNFPA initiated another project with UNFPA and NZAID funding with the aim of reducing gender-based violence in that country. The project interventions include awareness raising, drafting supportive policies and strengthening the capacity of service providers in dealing with the victims of violence.

A second large-scale study has been funded by UNFPA and AusAID to study the root causes of gender-based violence in the Solomon Islands and Kiribati. When this study is completed in 2008 it will be followed with appropriate interventions to reduce the incidence of gender-based violence.

UNFPA has recently released a publication titled Programming to address violence against women – 10 case studies containing evidence of successful interventions. It is available online on http://www.unfpa.org/publications/detail.cfm?ID=322

Mr Aziz says violence against Pacific women, including rape, incest, trafficking, physical and mental torture and other forms of sexual abuse, can be reduced or even stopped.

“UNFPA has found that specifically targeting national and community leaders and the larger public can bring about large changes in community attitude very quickly,” he said.

UNFPA and its partners have also helped rape victims to seek legal redress and helped women and girls to learn new skills to gain economic independence.