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Credits UNICEF Bolivia 2021
Published on April 6, 2021

UN launches a Program to combat violence against women and children


The Program will allow the development of guidelines and mechanisms to ensure that State institutions, at their three levels of government, strengthen financing for the prevention, care, and punishment of violence against women and children.

March 2021. Bolivia will implement a two-year program to strengthen financing mechanisms, at the national, departmental and municipal levels, to prevent, address and punish violence against children and women, through an alliance between the System of the United Nations (UN) and the Bolivian Government, within the framework of compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

"We seek to work in a coordinated way to generate products that help us guide governments and civil society to address and prevent violence against children and women as a priority," said the UN Resident Coordinator in Bolivia, Susana Sottoli, at the launch of the Program.

The Program will work with resources from the Joint Fund for the Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a mechanism created by the United Nations to support comprehensive policies that allow compliance with the SDGs until 2030.

For her part, the Vice Minister of Equal Opportunities, Miriam Huacani, was pleased to note that the Program will strengthen the capacities of the Bolivian State to combat the scourge of violence against women and children, in all its forms.

The three United Nations agencies in Bolivia involved in this program, UN Women, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), will coordinate with the different government agencies and organizations of civil society.

 

What the Program will do

The Program intends that the public sector institutions that have roles and functions in the prevention, care and punishment of violence against children and women have technical and budgetary guidelines and that the institutions of the protection system improve their performance and scope.

Bolivia is one of the countries with the highest rates of violence against women. At least 7.5 out of every 10 women suffer some act of violence in their lifetime, while more than 100 women on average are murdered each year for their status as women. The representative of UN Women, Nidya Pesántez remarked that Bolivia faces several challenges to eradicate violence against women. In addition to economic and labor inequalities, two factors appear on the horizon as aggravating the situation: tolerance and normalization of violence as part of the labor and family relationships faced by women.

Rafael Ramírez Mesec, representative of UNICEF Bolivia, stressed that the project aims to help the three levels of government have more effective, organic and appropriate tools to combat violence against women and children. "We must ensure that all victims have more effective public care and violence prevention services," he said.

The Program will generate evidence to evaluate the financial and institutional capacities for the prevention, care and punishment of violence against women and children, in addition to fostering spaces for dialogue to assist in the design and implementation of effective public policies, with emphasis on the improvement of protection systems at the local level.