Combating Gender-Based Violence in Mongolia project launches

Society
en_amarsaikhan@montsame.mn
2016-09-28 15:02:06

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ In the past six years, 95 lives were lost because of violence (in Mongolia), stressed Yo.Enkhjargal, the director of the National Centre Against Violence at the opening ceremony for the launch of UN and SDC joint “Combating Gender-Based Violence” project on September 28.

The ceremony was opened by the speeches of Minister of Justice and Domestic Affairs S.Byambatsogt and UN Population Fund Representative Naomi Kitahara, who also signed and formalized the project document.

 Markus Waldvogel, Country Director of SDC in Mongolia and Naomi Kitahara signed the contributions agreement to the project on June 24.

Gender based violence (GBV) and particularly domestic violence (DV), is a serious and life-threatening human rights violation prevalent in Mongolia today. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern “(At) the high prevalence of violence against women, in particular domestic and sexual violence, (and) at the lack of statistical information on violence against women.” According to the statistics of the General Police Authority, nearly 88.3% of victims of domestic violence are women, and 40% of them are young women aged 15-34, who are more unlikely to report. In addition, eighty people lost their lives, and 3,299 people were injured due to domestic violence in the last 5 years. In 2015, there were 1,356 cases of domestic violence registered and the number of domestic violence cases reported to the police increased by 26.0 percent from the same period of the previous years

The project aims to tackle GBV/DV in Mongolia by: 1) gathering data countrywide on the current state of GBV/DV and its root causes; 2) raising awareness of GBV/DV to help encourage a more sensitive public and responsive decision-makers; and 3) improving and expanding response mechanisms for survivors of GBV/DV.

The Project implementation partners include three Government Ministries, namely the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Population Development and Social Protection, and the Ministry of Health and Sports; Government agencies such as the National Registration Statistics Office, General Police Authority and the National Committee on Gender Equality; and partner NGOs.