Background
Worldwide, violence against women is increasingly being recognized as a criminal issue which needs to be squarely addressed through adequate policies, legislation, institutional mechanisms and services, and public awareness campaigns aimed at fighting this scourge. Women in the EECA suffer from the same types of violence as women in other parts of the world, be it domestic violence, trafficking or other forms of physical or sexual abuse. In such a climate, legal and policy frameworks need to be strengthened with protective and punitive measures, but the realization of this prospect is hindered by the absence of reliable data on violence and discrimination against women.
Since gaining independence in 1990s, the post-Soviet countries of EECA sub-region have witnessed a great shift in the legal reform on the issue of domestic violence. However, enforcement remains pervasive challenge, including adequate financing for addressing domestic violence through response and prevention work.
As the spearhead entity, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Advancement of Women – UN Women – has a singularly strong record on working to end violence against women, a core part of its mandate and history in advancing the human rights of women. UN Women has been at the forefront of advocacy efforts, brokering partnerships, inter-agency collaboration and pioneering approaches to respond to violence against women, including domestic violence, in a wide range of countries and settings in the EECA. Initiatives range from working to establish legal frameworks and specific national actions, to supporting prevention at the grassroots level, including in conflict and post-conflict situations. UN Women has also supported data collection on violence against women, facilitating new learning on the issue.
Key Domains for Enforcing Domestic Violence Legislation
In line with the ‘due diligence’ standard , which establishes obligations for governments to undertake every effort possible to both respond and prevent violence against women, there are two major domains of intervention that require significant efforts from the state actors in enforcement of the domestic violence legislation: response and prevention. Responding to cases of violence against women, with a view to securing protection shall include quality comprehensive care, access to justice for violence survivors, and ending impunity for perpetrators. This implies working with the security sector (e.g. police), health services, justice and legal systems, using protective orders, and promoting livelihoods opportunities for economic security and autonomy to enable women to escape situations of abuse and avoid recurrence in the future. Preventing violence against women and girls, second domain of intervention, shall focus on transforming discriminatory social attitudes, norms and practices, through sustained multi-faceted and mutually-reinforcing interventions that tackle root causes, protective and risk factors. Prevention of violence against women is key to achieving overall progress on structural gender inequality and furthering women’s empowerment.
Expert Meeting on Enforcement of Domestic Violence Legislation
Considering a wealth of progress in the EECA sub-region on adopting relevant policies and legislation and some steps towards effective implementation of the commitments on behalf of states, as well as some evident gaps in enforcement, UN Women would facilitate an Expert Meeting on Enforcement of Domestic Violence Legislation in January 2012 during 1,5 days.
The Expert Meeting will bring together experts from the EECA sub-region and other neighboring sub-regions with the objectives to analyze existing challenges and gaps, assess lessons learned, and identify effective approaches and good practices in implementing laws for addressing domestic violence.
It is expected that the proceedings of the Expert Meeting will provide a solid analytical ground for an outcome document that will in turn feed into the proceedings of the High-Level Meeting on Enforcing Domestic Violence Legislation for EECA sub-region, co-organized by UN Women and national counterparts in April-May 2012 in Kazakhstan.
The Expert Meeting will gather about 30-40 experts from the women’s NGOs, crisis centers, representatives of the Ministries of Interior, Members of Parliament, etc. from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia, Ukraine and Moldova. Among meeting participants are also representatives of other UN agencies, particularly UNFPA and UNDP, OSCE and international networks and NGOs (WAVE, Open Society Institute). Main language of the meeting will be Russian with simultaneous translation into English.
The Expert Meeting will be structured around two core domains of intervention and will include following four sub-sessions:
- Care and services for survivors of domestic violence;
- Access to justice for survivors of domestic violence;
- Protection and legal remedies for survivors of domestic violence;
- Prevention work.
For each sub-session, a key note/s will be provided drawing experience, gaps and/or lessons learnt from the country/ies in EECA followed by an in-depth discussion between the experts.
In light of the abovestated, UN Women is planning to sub-contract an International Consultant to provide substantive support in preparation, during and follow-up of the Expert Meeting.
Duties and Responsibilities
Under the overall supervision and guidance of the UN Women Programme Specialist the International Consultant will be responsible for provision of high quality substantive support to the preparation and actual organization, as well as follow-up of the Expert Meeting.
More specifically the consultant will be responsible for undertaking the following:
- Provide suggestions for the participants at the Expert Meeting, including key note speakers and substantive inputs into the draft Concept Note and Agenda of the Expert Meeting – within 5-16 December – 3 working days (home-based);
- Conduct a thorough desk review of existing practices, lessons learnt on the topic, particularly in relation to EECA sub-region, to ensure high quality preparation for the Expert Meeting – within 5-16 December – 3 working days (home-based);
- Participate as a resource person during the proceedings of the Expert Meeting to guide/facilitate the discussion to cover various dimensions of gaps in enforcement of domestic violence legislation – 24-27 January 2012 (TBC) – 3 working days (travel to Almaty, Kazakhstan);
- Develop a draft outcome document of the Expert Meeting, based on the key highlighted practices, lessons learnt, which shall outline key gaps in enforcing legislation on domestic violence in EECA sub-region, identify good practices in responding these gaps and include recommendations to feed into the proceedings of the Sub-regional High-Level Meeting on Enforcing Domestic Violence legislation to be held in mid 2012. The draft of the outcome document shall be discussed with the participants of the Expert Meeting and their feedback shall be incorporated into a final draft to be submitted to UN Women – 30 January – 10 February 2012 – 8 working days (home-based).
Deliverables, Timeframe:
The consultant is expected to deliver the following outputs:
- Draft agenda, list of participants (in close cooperation with UN Women Programme Specialist), desk review completed – 20 December (6 working days);
- Outcome document, discussed with participants of Expert Meeting, with their feedback incorporated, and endorsed by UN Women – 10 February (11 working days).
Management Arrangement:
The individual consultant will work under the guidance of and direct supervision of the Programme Specialist, UN Women EECA SRO.
Financial arrangements:
Payment will be disbursed in two installments upon submission and approval of indicated deliverables and certification by the UN Women Programme Specialist that the services have been satisfactorily performed.
Evaluation:
Individual consultant will be evaluated based on the methodology of cumulative analysis. The candidates will be evaluated in two stages: technical evaluation and financial evaluation.
Technical evaluation criteria:
No. / Criteria / Maximum points
- Relevant University Degree - 50;
- Minimum 15 years of proven work experience in the field of promotion/protection of women’s human rights with particular focus on ending violence against women - 100;
- Proven professional experience in legislative analysis in the field of gender equality, preferably violence against women - 70;
- Demonstrated knowledge and experience with writing and analytical work - 40;
- Good knowledge of the gender equality issues, particularly associated with violence against women, pertaining to the Eastern and Southeastern Europe and former Soviet Union - 40;
- Fluency in English - 25;
- Computer literacy, use of e-mail software - 25.
Maximum total technical scoring: 350
Only candidates who have passed over the mandatory criteria and have accumulated at least 245 points under technical evaluation will qualify to the next round of financial evaluation.
Evaluation of financial proposal:
Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula:
B = T + C(low)/C *X, where
T is the total technical score awarded to the evaluated proposal (only to those proposals that pass 70% of technical evaluation);
C is the price of the evaluated proposal; and
C(low ) is the lowest of all evaluated proposal prices among responsive proposals.
X is the maximum financial points obtainable (financial part is 30%, while technical is 70%, meaning that if the total technical points are 350 (70%), the financial figure should be 150 (30%).
Winning candidate:
The winning candidate will be the candidate, who has accumulated the highest aggregated score (technical scoring + financial scoring).
Documents to be included into the submission of proposal:
Interested International Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:
- Technical Proposal, including:
(i) Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work
(ii) P11 form (http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/P_11_form_UNwomen.doc ) - Financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount with a detailed breakdown of expenses: travel, per diems, local transportation, visa costs, daily fee, etc.
The requested documents should be combined into one application and uploaded on the site.
Competencies
Technical:
- Proven professional experience in legislative analysis in the field of gender equality, preferably violence against women;
- Demonstrated knowledge and experience with writing and analytical work;
- Good knowledge of the gender equality issues, particularly associated with violence against women, pertaining to the Eastern and Southeastern Europe and former Soviet Union.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
- Degree in Social Sciences and/or Law.
Experience:
- Minimum 15 years of proven work experience in the field of promotion/protection of women’s human rights with particular focus on ending violence against women.
Language and other skills:
- Fluency in English;
- Computer literacy, use of e-mail software.
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.
All online applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from
http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/P_11_form_UNwomen.doc).
Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.