Purpose: The online discussion is intended to provide a forum for activists, advocates, experts and other stakeholders around the world working on issues related to violence against women to feed into and help inform the indepth study undertaken by the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution A/RES/58/185.

In that resolution, the General Assembly called upon the Secretary-General to address the forms and manifestations of violence against women as identified in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly entitled "Women 2000: gender, equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century."

In particular, the GA resolution highlighted five areas to be emphasized in the study:

1. A statistical overview on all forms of violence against women, in order to better evaluate the scale of such violence, while identifying gaps in data collection and formulating proposals for assessing the extent of the problem;
2. The causes of violence against women including its root causes and other contributing factors;
3. The medium and long-term consequence of violence against women;
4. The health, social and economic costs of violence against women;
5. The identification of best practice examples in areas including legislation, policies, programmes and effective remedies, and the efficiency of such mechanisms to the end of combating and eliminating violence against women

Each week of the online discussion will be devoted to a separate topic with specific questions posed for each topic.

The topics are:

Week 1:
Strengthening the knowledge base
The Platform for Action, the outcome document and other instruments cover many different forms and manifestations of violence against women. Yet many of them remain hidden, are less visible, or not acknowledged. Lack, or incomplete data can result in inaction, or poor policy response. Limited data can make it more difficult to advocate for effective preventive and remedial measures. Some groups of women are especially vulnerable to various forms of violence because of factors such as race, ethnicity, age, migrant or immigant status, disability, or other factors.

During the first week, participants will focus on efforts to strengthen the knowledge base. They will be invited to share their work to collect data and information; the findings they have arrived at; the conclusions drawn; as well as challenges and problems they have encountered in collecting, using, and disseminating data. Particular emphasis will be placed on less visible forms of violence against women, and when perpetrated in regard to specific groups or communities of women/girls. Participants will also be invited to focus on data gaps and the impact of such gaps on their work. They will also be invited to suggest areas for future work, and to make recommendations for achieving specific goals for strengthening the knowledge base.

Week 2:
Responding to all forms and manifestations of violence against women
The continuing pervasiveness of violence against women in its various forms and manifestations poses complex challenges in terms of prevention and response. Clear understanding of causes, as well as consequences of various forms of violence is critical for effective action, in particular when such violence intersects with other factors such as race, ethnicity, class, age, or disability, etc.

During the second week, participants will focus on two aspects: they will share their insights about causes and consequences of violence against women, and draw attention to findings and experience from their own research and studies, or from practical work with victims of violence. Secondly, they will relate their insights about causes and consequences to necessary responses, including prevention. They will give examples of their own efforts, challenges encountered as well as successful strategies, good practices and lessons learned. They will also make recommendations for achieving specific goals for enhancing the response to all forms of violence against women.

Week 3:
Assessing and evaluating impact
While diverse actors, in all parts of the world, implement actions ranging from legislative and policy, to advocacy and services for victims, tools and methodologies for assessing and evaluating impact remain limited. Monitoring effectiveness of measures taken is necessary to enhance accountability.

During the third week, participants will focus on the following: they will provide examples of impact assessments of measures to tackle various forms and manifestations of violence against women, and pay attention to situations where violence intersects with factors such as race, ethnicity, migrant or immigrant status, etc. The third week will also provide an opportunity to highlight key areas and issues which the study could highlight, as well as recommendations for action.

Visit the website! You will find there the reports from two expert group meetings on data and statistics; and on good practices; the report of a consultation on key issues and action; a guidance note for NGO inputs; and the Secretary-Generals' interim report to the General Assembly, including the preliminary outline of the study.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/vaw/.

For more information contact: Monique Widyono at: widyono@un.org

The ground rules are the following:

• All messages must be identifiable by adding the author's name, organization (if any) and country (for DAW record keeping and statistical purposes) at the end of the message
• Always refer to the subject of the week;
• "Post" messages, do not send to the moderator or coordinator via e-mail;
• Participants may contribute to the discussion in English, French or Spanish, though there will be no translation of contributions posted on the discussion page;
• All messages must not contain insulting language;
• "Anonymous" messages will not be accepted;
• All messages must not exceed four paragraphs or no more than 500 words;
• Attachments will not be accepted, all text has to be in the body of the posted message.

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