UN Women Moldova and the Ministry of Internal Affairs sign a cooperation agreement to further advance gender equality in internal affairs sector
Date:
On August 22, 2018, UN Women Moldova (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Moldova signed a Memorandum of Understanding, aiming to achieve the objectives of the Strategy for ensuring equality between women and men in the Republic of Moldova, The National Strategy for Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, and the National Program for the Implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.
In particular, UN Women will provide support to strengthen national capacities in the field of gender equality, transpose international norms and standards into national policy frameworks, laws and programs, support efforts to mobilize public support to ensure gender equality, empower women in the internal affairs sector, and support effective donor coordination in the field of gender equality and women empowerment.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) will devote human and technical resources to the implementation of activities and initiatives, mobilize high-level political support, ensure effective co-ordination with national and development partners, apply an innovative approach to joint work the basis of this Memorandum.
Asya Varbanova, Representative a.i. of UN Women Moldova, stated: “The Ministry of Internal Affairs has made concrete commitments to integrate gender equality into all aspects of its work. These include increasing women’s representation within its structures, creating favorable working environment for both women and men, strengthening the efforts to prevent and respond to violence against women, and overall ensuring a gender sensitive approach to the different security needs of women and men. These commitments are contained in recently adopted strategies and plans and the focus should be now on their implementation, which is the focus of our Memorandum of Cooperation.”
Specifically, the main activities of the action plan for the 2018-2019 period are as follows:
- Organize trainings on gender equality and implementation of Resolution 1325 for the representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and its subordinated institutions including the Police Academy
- Conduct the qualitative study on the working conditions of women within MIA
- Develop a gender mainstreaming guide for public servants
- Support MIA to pilot gender responsive budgeting within the institution
- Support public servants from MIA to develop gender responsive public policies
- Organize regular capacity building activities on gender equality for the members of the Association of Women in Police and National Association of Women in Internal Affairs System
- Support MIA to hold public discussions on women’s empowerment and gender equality
- Develop mechanisms to end gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment in the security field
- Carry out capacity building activities for human resource specialists of MIA on the effective implementation of policies to end gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment
- Support General Police Inspectorate to strengthen its policies and regulations on police interventions in cases of violence against women
- Implement a capacity building programme for police officers for strengthening efficient multidisciplinary response to gender-based violence cases
- Support MIA in sex disaggregated data collection regarding gender-based violence
- Conduct exchange of good practices within Moldova and with other countries, including a study visit, to strengthen the capacities and inter-sectoral cooperation in cases of domestic violence.
- Support MIA to strengthen capacities for interventions in critical gender-based violence cases
- Support MIA to pilot and establish a mechanism for monitoring the implementation of restraining orders
- Explore innovative tools for responding to gender-based violence
- Support MIA to carry out local campaigns during 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign
The Memorandum was signed for a period of three years and may be extended for two more years.