EQUALITY NOW New York: 250 West 57 Street, #1720, New York, NY 10107, USA • Tel: +1 212-586-0906 • Fax: +1 212-586-1611 • Email: [email protected] London: 1 Birdcage Walk, London, SW1H 9JJ, UK ▪ Tel: +44(0)20-7304-6902 • Fax:+44(0)20-7973-1292 • Email: [email protected] Nairobi: PO Box 2018 - 00202, Nairobi, Kenya • Tel: +254 20-2719-832 • Fax: +254 20-2719-868 • Email: [email protected] World Health Organization Secretariat Avenue Appia 20 1211 Geneva 27 Switzerland By Email: [email protected] 4 June 2015 Dear Office of the World Health Organization Secretariat: Equality Now, an international human rights organization working for the promotion and protection of the rights of women and girls around the world, welcomes the opportunity to submit input in response to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) request in accordance with the Sixty- Seventh World Health Assembly Resolution 67.15 (24 May 2014) calling for the development of a draft Global plan of action to strengthen the role of the health system within a national multisectoral response to address interpersonal violence in particular against women and girls and against children, building on existing relevant WHO work. This submission provides requested feedback on the First Discussion Paper containing Draft Zero of the global plan of action published by the WHO Secretariat on 20 March 2015, in response to the questions indicated. Issues of concern to Equality Now, founded in 1992, include sexual violence, trafficking of women and girls, female genital mutilation (FGM) and discrimination in law, with a cross-cutting focus on adolescent girls. Equality Now’s membership base, the Equality Action Network, is comprised of individuals and organizations in over 190 countries. Equality Now combines grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy to achieve legal and systemic change to benefit women and girls, and works to ensure that governments enact and enforce laws and policies that uphold their rights. Equality Now greatly appreciates your efforts to draft this action plan and accelerate progress to end violence against women and girls. Thank you for your attention and we hope the information we have provided is useful in drafting your global plan of action. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions. We look forward to seeing forthcoming drafts and the final version of the global plan of action. Kind regards, Yasmeen Hassan Global Director Equality Now EQUALITY NOW WORKS FOR THE CIVIL, POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN AROUND THE WORLD Feedback on Chapters 1 (Introduction) and 2 (Vision, goal, objectives, guiding principles and time frame) 1. Are you in broad agreement with the vision, goals and guiding principles? Please provide suggestions for improving them. 2. Are the proposed objectives adequate and feasible? Please provide suggestions for improving them. 3. It may be unrealistic to expect objectives to be achieved in a short period of time. We welcome your feedback on the proposed time frame. 4. Does the proposed structure for the zero draft of the global plan of action work? In response to the four questions indicated in the zero draft, Equality Now welcomes the zero draft put forward by the WHO Secretariat and is in strong agreement with the vision, goal objectives, and guiding principles of a global plan of action and appreciates the emphasis on human rights and gender equality. However, preventing violence should be highlighted as the first goal. In addition, the proposed time frame should also be elaborated on further to clarify whether the 10 year period refers to implementation of the global plan of action at the global level and/or the implementation of national plans of action. Feedback on Chapter 3 (Proposed actions for Member States, national and international partners, and the WHO Secretariat) 1. Are you in broad agreement with the evidence-based actions to address different types of violence? Are there any revisions or additions to the proposed actions? Equality Now is in broad agreement with the evidence-based actions to address different types of violence but would encourage several additions and revisions to strengthen the global plan of action. As general overarching suggestions, Equality Now would respectfully encourage the WHO Secretariat in developing this plan of action to:1 Address violence against women, girls and children as not only a public health issue, but also as a human rights issue in accordance with international human rights standards throughout the global action plan in line with the guiding principles in Chapter 2. Include actions for Member States and national and international partners to also play a role in documenting best practices, not only the WHO Secretariat. Ensure any efforts to address violence against women and girls, including collection of data, health services and training curricula, address multiple forms of violence comprehensively, rather than focusing on only one or two particular forms of violence. With regard to data, it would be useful collect data on the rates of a wider range of the types of violence rather than only intimate partner and sexual violence (e.g. FGM, child marriage, incest, trafficking, prostitution, etc.). We welcome the inclusion of trafficking for sexual exploitation and the commercial sexual exploitation of children in the zero draft, and recommend for the global plan of action to also include commercial sexual exploitation broadly, particularly in 1 See also e.g., Oxfam, Ending Violence Against Women: The case for a comprehensive international action plan (22 February 2013), available at www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bn-ending-violence-against-women-action- plan-220213-en.pdf. 1 prostitution. This means of both women and girls, and both of women who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation and those who are in prostitution but do not identify or are not identified as victims of trafficking. Women in prostitution are particularly vulnerable to violence, HIV/AIDS and other risks to their physical and mental health.2 Encourage Member States to implement this global plan of action in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders including multiple government ministries, first line responders including law enforcement, women’s organizations and other civil society organizations, service providers, and survivors and survivor-led organizations. Reference consultation and collaboration with a wider range of ministries including ministries of justice, health, education, foreign affairs and finance, not only ministries on women and children, to ensure multispectral responses to violence against women and girls. Recommend that any efforts to collect data on violence be coordinated with other similar mandates or ongoing processes to report on this information, such as part of post-2015 development framework. Include actions for Member States to make available financial resources for national and international partners to address violence against women and girls, including through the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and all concerned government ministries. Broaden any references to trainings of health care workers to include a wider range of first responders such as emergency medical response teams and law enforcement, and ensure any such trainings also address how to provide sensitive, victim-friendly care as well as how to collect and preserve evidence. Strengthen references to ‘development’ of guidelines, protocols or training curricula to also include resourcing and implementation of such guidelines, etc. Ensure any references to trainings for health care providers and continuing education go hand in hand and are not referenced in isolation from each other in different parts of the action plan. Direct any services and interventions to address violence against children to be gender- sensitive and tailored to girls and boys as appropriate. Include actions for Member States and national and international partners to develop guidelines for referrals to non-health services including legal or emergency shelter services for victims of violence, and collaboration with organizations that provide these services. Include actions for Member States to ensure the provision (including through adequate funding) of services to women (and men) in prostitution, including but going beyond harm reduction (e.g. screening for STIs and condom distribution) to include assistance with exiting prostitution for those who wish to do so. This includes long-term assistance with 2 In recognition of the mental health impact of prostitution on individuals, a European-wide network of psychotraumatologists was recently set up: www.trauma-and-prostitution.eu/en/. Recent research from the UK, (Eaves/Bindel et al. (2012) Breaking down the Barriers (www.eavesforwomen.org.uk/news-events/news/new-eaves- report-highlights-the-barriers-for-women-to-exit-prostitution) provides data on violence, mental health impact and drug use/addiction amongst women in both in on-street and indoor prostitution in England. This study found less difference in these areas between the two sectors (on-street vs. indoor prostitution) than previously assumed. In addition to discussing barriers to exiting, the report also gives recommendations on exiting services - in which health care professionals should be involved in as part of a multisectoral approach. While this is a useful piece of recent research, there is a need for further