To coincide with November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, four United Nations agencies have launched a new initiative to prevent violence against women and girls in Asia and the Pacific, building on research that shows alarmingly high levels of violence in some parts of the region.
Partners for Prevention Phase II (P4P 2) – a UN regional joint programme – combines the strengths of UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women and UNV.
The programme’s new phase is aimed at increasing global knowledge of what works to prevent violence against women and girls by transforming harmful masculine norms associated with such violence.
In its first phase (2008-2013) the programme produced the unprecedented UN Multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific which documented the prevalence of men’s use and experience of violence in nine sites across the region, and identified what factors make men more or less likely to use violence against women and girls.
The study of over 10,000 men found that nearly half of those men interviewed reported using physical or sexual violence against a female partner, ranging from 26 percent to 80 percent across the region. Nearly a quarter of men interviewed reported perpetrating rape against a woman or girl, ranging from 10 percent to 62 percent.
Building on the successes of Phase I, Phase II (2014-2017) adopts a new approach for sustained regional results. P4P 2 will support the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of prevention interventions that work to transform harmful masculine norms in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville - Papua New Guinea, and Viet Nam. The interventions are to be based on site-specific recommendations of the UN Multi-Country Study on Men and Violence, local knowledge and international best practice.
Alongside the interventions, P4P 2 aims to enhance institutional capacity at the local and regional levels for longer term impact. This will include empowering civil society networks and volunteers to transform social norms associated with violence and enhance evidence-based policy advocacy.
“The long-term objective of P4P 2 is to ensure women and girls attain their rights to live free from violence and healthy, non-violent and equitable ways of being for men and boys are the most common and accepted forms of masculinity,” said Kathy Taylor, Manager of Partners for Prevention.
P4P Phase II is supported by the UNDP, UNFPA, UN Women, UNV and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
For more information, please contact:
Cedric Monteiro | UNDP Communications Advisor | cedric.monteiro@undp.org
Nicole E. Foster | UNFPA Regional Communications Analyst | foster@unfpa.org | +66 2 687 0146
Montira Narkvichien | UN Women Regional Communications Specialist | montira.narkvichien@unwomen.org | +66 81 668 8900
All of P4P’s publications, including an external evaluation report on Phase I, are available on P4P’s website: http://www.partners4prevention.org/
