Prevention and Access to Essential Services to End Violence against Women and Girls

UN Women ECO is working closely with strategic national counterparts such as the National Council for Women (NCW) and its Women’s Complaints Office to enhance the legal and psychosocial and mental health services available to Egyptian women and support the referral mechanism among the various service providers. UN Women works closely with the Ministry of Social Solidarity to strengthen the human and institutional capacities of its eight Women’s Shelters, across the country, and to increase the quality of their multi services to women and their children including income generation support.

Through UN Women’s work, a training module on gender for human resources was developed and incorporated into a training compendium of the National Institute of Governance and Sustainable Development affiliated to the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.

Under the essential services programme, UN Women has partnered with national stakeholders in rolling out a series of nationally and community led processes to tackle the social norms and subsequent attidues and behaviors which are at the root of all forms of violence ainst women. Specifically:

The film “Between Two Seas”, co-produced under the programme in partnership with the NCW, has won 22 national and international film festival awards and is now streaming on Netflix[1]. Hundreds of Egyptians attended public screenings followed by group discussions on how to end the forms of violence depicted. Between Two Seas was written by Mariam Naoum and directed by Anas Tolba.
Garnering 350,000 social media views in its first month, the second phase of the NCW’s “Taa’ Marbouta” campaign supported in part by the programme, increased awareness on the positive impact of women’s access to economic opportunities, combatting stigma and discrimination[2].
The programme supported the production of episodes of the “Nehad Stories” TV show, resulting in around 1.14 million Egyptians learning about different forms of violence against women, their legal rights and access to response services.
More than 70,500 beneficiaries, including men and boys,increased their awareness of gender roles, stigma, and the negative impacts of different forms of violence against women through household visits and trainings. Many of the engaged youth continued implementing activities, receiving support for volunteer-run awareness-raising sessions, sports days, self-defense classes, children’s carnivals, puppet-making, storytelling, art therapy, street graffiti and interactive theatre.
More than 16,000 university students were engaged through community mobilization and awareness-raising, in cooperation with Cairo University’s Anti-Harassment Unit. A sexual harassment policy was also developed and adopted at Cairo University with support from the programme, with training provided to 200 students and 23 faculty members.
Nearly 500 children received messages about safety from different forms of sexual abuse through interactive songs, cartoons, games, and discussions imparted in school programmes developed.