Title: UN Secretary-General's Database on Violence Against Women

Source/Sponsoring Agency: United Nations. Division for the Advancement of Women

URL: http://webapps01.un.org/vawdatabase/

Date Checked: 5/13/2009      Status: Active

Date Annotated: 5/13/2009

Topics: Foreign Law; Human Rights Law; International Law; Women and the Law

Other keywords: United Nations General Assembly; Violence

Contents: On March 5, 2009, the United Nations Secretary-General launched a database on the subject of violence against women. Its creation was in response to a request by the General Assembly of the United Nations to establish a database designed to document the “extent, nature and consequences of all forms of violence against women, and on the impact and effectiveness of policies and programmes for, including best practices in, combating such violence.” The request was made within the context of a comprehensive resolution adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December, 2006, which called for strengthened efforts in eliminating violence against women in all its forms. Most of the information contained in the database was provided by Member States through the completion of a questionnaire. As of March, 2009, approximately 62 Member States had responded to the questionnaire; the United States was not among them. Various other sources of information include reports to human rights treaty bodies and statements made at the United Nations. The database is accessible through an Advanced Search tab located in a static toolbar at the top of the page. Searches may be conducted by: 1) the type of measure undertaken by States to address violence against women, 2) forms of violence addressed by measures, 3) country or region, 4) year, 5) keyword, and 6) any combination thereof. Searches may further be filtered by restricting results to show only specific categories of measures. Although users may search the database in any of the six official languages of the United Nations, individual database records are maintained only in English and/or the language in which the information was provided. A nice feature of the database is that if a record is not available in the requested search language, it will still be provided in English and/or the original language in which it was submitted. A static Google search box is also available throughout the site, but compared to the Advanced Search feature, it is of little use. Another excellent way to access the contents of the database is through a tab labeled “Country Pages,” which is also located in the static toolbar. Here, links to pages containing information about individual countries are organized alphabetically. Each country page contains extensive information about that country’s legal framework as it pertains to violence against women (with descriptions of the relevant laws), its policies, strategies and programs, institutional mechanisms, services for victims/survivors, preventive measures and training, research and statistical data, and various other miscellaneous information when available. Another helpful tab located in the toolbar is labeled “Good Practices.” This tab links to an emergent page highlighting specific measures, particularly legal, service-oriented, and preventive, which have been identified as good practices. Overall, the UN’s database will serve to nicely complement the new legal resources database currently being developed by the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at Cornell Law School.

Author of Annotation: A. Emerson