Title: Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence Against Women and Girls

Source/Sponsoring Agency: UN Women

URL: http://www.endvawnow.org/

Date Checked: 12/1/2011      Status: Active

Date Annotated: 11/17/2011

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

Other keywords: United Nations; Violence

Contents: The Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls is an initiative of UN Women that acts as a central repository for the tools that best address violence against women and girls. Available in English, French and Spanish, the site’s homepage offers several “Programming Modules” from which to choose, including Legislation. Here, guiding principles for developing legislation, recommended drafting language, advocacy tools for introducing new or reformed laws, tips on implementing and enforcing laws, and more, are offered. Also on the homepage, below the list of modules, is a pair of search engines. One is specific to tools and the other is specific to expertise. Both offer filters for language, region and other categories. A wider, static, search engine is set forth at the top of each page, allowing for simple and advanced searching across the website as a whole. The advanced setting allows searches to be narrowed by module, date and more. Each search result is accompanied by a helpful “where you are" feature that functions as a breadcrumb trail to show the researcher where each item may be directly located on the website without searching. Several laws, domestic and international, are set forth in HTML format, but when possible, the site links to outside webpages or PDFs to provide the actual document. In addition to the actual laws, the site provides analysis of what each law includes or lacks. The discussion and analysis set forth on each webpage is offered for printing, emailing, downloading, sharing and more. Coverage is currently a bit sporadic, but the site indicates that “every few months, an expanding number of programming guidance modules will continue to be developed and added for specific issues and population groups.” Website registration is offered as a means of staying current on the topics. The site is clearly designed to reach not only policy-makers and practitioners but also women who are suffering from violence or working with those who are. It offers a unique “quick escape from site” feature at the top of each page that when clicked upon, removes the user to a clean Google search page. Hotline numbers are also available, as well as recommendations in the FAQ list regarding how to hide your search history.

Author of Annotation: A. Emerson