Gender NGOs receive support from UN

Gender groups in Tajikistan will receive US $100,000 in assistance in 2006 from the United Nations to improve implementation of legislation aimed at curbing violence against women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) mission in the country said on Friday. "Tajikistan’s association of NGOs on prevention of violence against women, which includes five organisations, has won the grant - it is the only group amongst the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS] countries," Nargis Azizova, a gender advisor for UNIFEM in Tajikistan, said in the capital, Dushanbe. The United Nations Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence against Women is set to provide $1.8 million to 24 groups in the world working on the elimination of gender-based violence next year. The fund is a unique multilateral mechanism established by the UN General Assembly in 1996 and administered by UNIFEM. Grants are awarded by a committee comprised of representatives of UN agencies and international NGOs. Bursaries this year went to initiatives that focused on ensuring that national policies and laws to end violence against women were being implemented. "We want to conduct a comprehensive information and legal campaign targeting law enforcement and judicial officials, both male and female. We are also planning to advocate the draft law with law enforcement bodies and the parliament," Kanoat Ibragimova, head of the League of Female Lawyers of Tajikistan, a member organisation of the association to implement the grant project, said. Another component of the project is to improve crisis centres providing shelter to victims of gender based violence. Asked how effective the shelters were, the gender activist said: "Just five years ago it would have been impossible for such places to exist as there still was the rule of the gun in society." Tajikistan saw a devastating civil war between 1992 and 1997, while some local warlords remained powerful several years after the conflict ended. "Nowadays, the crisis centres can protect victims because law enforcement bodies and other relevant government offices have boosted their strength and capacity. An example for that is the crisis centre in [the northern province of] Khujand, which is up and running," Ibragimova said.