Ending Violence Against Women and Girls

Photo: UN Women/Ellie van Baaren

Violence against women and girls in Pacific Island countries is among the highest in the world - about twice the global average.

Up to 68 per cent of Pacific women have reported experiencing physical or sexual violence by a partner in their lifetime, in countries where prevalence studies have been undertaken.

The Ending Violence Against Women and Girls programme within the Fiji Multi-Country Office (MCO), serving 14 Pacific Island countries and territories, aims to enable women and girls in the Pacific to live free from violence. It takes a holistic approach to this complex issue, supporting Pacific-led activities to improve policies, to meet the immediate needs of women experiencing violence, and to prevent violence from occurring.

UN Women provides technical assistance and support to governments and civil society organisations across the Pacific that are addressing VAWG, with a focus on supporting the adoption and implementation of laws, policies and plans to prevent gender-based violence and to strengthen access to quality services.

Key Project: The Pacific Partnership to End Violence Against Women and Girls (Pacific Partnership)

Central to the EVAWG programme is the Pacific Partnership to End Violence Against Women and Girls (Pacific Partnership) bringing together governments, civil society organisations, communities and other partners to promote gender equality, prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG), and increase access to quality response services for survivors.

To achieve this, the Pacific Partnership aims to transform the social norms that allow violence against women and girls to continue; to ensure survivors have access to quality response services; and to support national and regional institutions to meet their commitments to gender equality and the prevention of violence against women and girls. Working through partners, it will promote equal rights and opportunities for all Pacific people through innovative approaches to education, access to essential services, and policy development.

The EUR27.6 million partnership is funded primarily by the European Union (EUR12.7m) that supports all three outcome areas of the programme, with the Governments of Australia (EUR11.1m) and New Zealand (EUR3.2m) providing targeted funding to the second outcome supported by UN Women (EUR0.6m).

The programme has three outcome areas being jointly coordinated by the Pacific Community (SPC), Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (Forum Secretariat) and UN Women Fiji MCO, that is also leading overall programme coordination.

UN Women Fiji MCO implements the largest of the programme’s three outcome areas, aiming to promote gender equitable social norms at individual and community levels to prevent violence against women and girls, and to ensure survivors have access to quality response services.

Previous Project: Pacific Regional Ending Violence Against Women Facility Fund (Pacific Fund)

In early 2018, UN Women completed its former key EVAW project, the Pacific Regional Ending Violence Against Women Facility Fund (Pacific Fund). The Pacific Fund was a grants and capacity building project, managed by the MCO’s EVAW programme from 2009 to 2017/18. It was funded by the Australian Government and provided more than 40 grants to recipients across seven countries.