Outcome CHN_D_3.1

People’s lives in China are improved further as headway is made in ensuring access to childcare, education, healthcare services, elderly care, housing, and social assistance, and more people in China, including left-behind groups, benefit from equitable and public services and social protection systems as well as accelerated efforts to reduce gender inequality and other forms of social inequality throughout the life-course.

The outcome was partially achieved. However, some progress was made in prevention and response of gender-based violence for the implementation of Anti-Domestic Law in China. The progress includes the capacity development of service providers and building public awareness on zero-tolerance to GBV. There were some delays on standards development of SOP on GBV essential services due to partnership building and CoVID-19 restriction. In 2021, a variety of service providers were brought together and started to discuss how to set up guidelines and strengthen the services. In the prevention side, general public were mobilized to discuss how to support women and girls experiencing violence, and how to prevent violence. UN Women contributed to these achievements through first-time ever closely working and partnership building with the Supreme People's Court, launching of the Chinese version of Essential Service Package to Women and Girls subject to violence (ESP) with key national and local duty bearers, and facilitating the civil society organizations (CSO) consultation workshop on localization and adaptation of ESP social service. The CSOs joined the consultation are the key leading CSOs serving rural women, women living with HIV/AIDS, LGBTI group, and women with disabilities experiencing gender-based violence. All these built solid foundation for the development of the SOPs and training manual in 2022. ESP, which is jointly developed by UN Women, UNFPA, WHO, UNDP and UNODC, is listed as key technical reference for the cooperation with the Supreme Court in China and received great interest from national working committee on children and women, the key coordination agency for anti-domestic violence in China. By mobilizing public discussion and awareness raising, UN Women contributed through male engagement on ending violence against women during 16 Days Campaign. In the 16 Days Campaign, UN Women played a lead role and adopted with creative strategy to engage different partners, including UN agencies, embassies in China, media and platforms, private sectors, Civil Society Organizations, key opinion leaders, and young people to advocate for male engagement and not to be a by stander. UN Women launched two theme videos on main media platforms Weibo, Kuaishou, and WeChat with key messages. In total, the two theme videos have 6 million viewers. The hashtag of “Don’t be a bystander” has 65 million viewers and ranked top 15 hashtag on Weibo. The same topic campaign reached 34.6 million viewers on Kuaishou. The campaign largely contributed to the public discussion on ending violence against women in China. Overall, the challenge of shrinking space for cooperation between government, thinktank and UN agency and international funding and the sensitivity of gender-based violence in China delayed the partnership building progress. As a result, the outcome has not been fully achieved. Based on the progress made to date, the original strategy and theory of change for this outcome is still applicable in China. The interventions under this outcome are supported by global guideline issued jointly by UN Women, UNFPA, WHO, UNDP, and UNODC and validated in many Asian countries.

People’s lives in China are improved further as headway is made in ensuring access to childcare, education, healthcare services, elderly care, housing, and social assistance, and more people in China, including left-behind groups, benefit from equitable and public services and social protection systems as well as accelerated efforts to reduce gender inequality and other forms of social inequality throughout the life-course.

In 2022, through the implementation of programme ‘Domestic Violence Prevention and Response in Post CoVID-19 China’ UN Women China Office contributed to the outcome and made significant progress in strengthening of ensuring essential services to women and girls subject to/at risk of gender-based violence (GBV) and increasing public awareness and understanding on healthy social norm towards ending violence against women (EVAW). UN Women China Office achieved results in localization and implementation of Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence (ESP) in strengthening of both social and judicial services to women and girls experiencing GBV. A Domestic Violence (DV) Social Service Training Manual adapted from the ESP has been developed by Beijing Dongcheng Yuanzhong Family and Community Development Service Center (Yuanzhong) with technical and financial support from UN Women. By applying the manual and the guideline in capacity development, 37 civil society organizations, including 10 women’s rights’ organizations, from diverse background (including women living with HIV, women living with disability, LGBTIQ+ and migrant women), have strengthened capacities on GBV case management, outreach and referral services to survivors, and increased awareness on community level prevention of GBV based on feedbacks of the pre- and post-assessment. 376 women and girls subject to/at risk of GBV have benefited from the services provided by these organizations. This also includes community level interventions for women living with HIV being delivered in partnership with National Women's Network Against Aids in China and Aizijia. In the strengthening of judicial service provided to DV survivors, ten guiding cases for domestic violence court trial are under development by the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence (CIAJ), an affiliated entity of the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China. The guiding cases are real trial cases which have been analyzed against a set of indicators developed by UN Women to assess legislation, protection measures, and access to justice for survivors of domestic violence in China. The CIAJ will use the guiding cases to identify gaps in current domestic violence case trial practice and use as a reference point to be used by local courts and judges for future DV case trials, with the aim of strengthening people-centered approach to justice and court decision for domestic violence cases. UN Women China provided financial support and developed the indicators with support from UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. Three social norms change campaigns on EVAW have been organized by UN Women China, receiving a total of 120 million views, and generating 11.9 thousand positive comments on various social media platforms. A wide range of stakeholders from bilateral, private sector, women’s rights organizations and CSOs, UN agencies, media platforms and key opinion leaders (KOLs) have been mobilized by UN Women China to provide technical and pro bono support. These three campaigns are tailored-made to engaged young people, men and boys and the broader public to become action takers on ending violence against women and girls as following: A campaign titled ‘Be the supporter, start by supporting your children who experience Gender-Based violence’ was organized on the 2022 Father’s Day (19 June 2022) to advocate male’s role in prevention of violence and supporting survivors. The link to video: https://video.weibo.com/show?fid=1034:4782026151362627. The campaign also includes an online round table live-streaming inviting three male key opinion leaders who have in-total 5 million subscribers to discuss how to set-up male role model in respectful relation. A campaign titled ‘Acknowledge the unsafe experience by women and respect other’s boundaries’ was launched on the International Youth Day (12 August 2022) and called for young people to become champions in respectful relationship and stop violence. The link to the video: https://video.weibo.com/show?fid=1034:4801723722825748. The campaign also includes an online round table live-streaming inviting four young key opinion leaders who have in-total 1.2 million subscribers to discuss how to advocate their peers towards zero tolerance on violence against women and girls. A campaign titled ’Be the light in the dark’ was launched on the 16-day campaign of activism on EVAW (25 November 2022). An immersive exhibition calls for public support on frontline service organization and WRO was launched by UN Women, engaging over fifteen young gender equality advocates, representative from WRO, bilateral, UN Agencies and six leading female artists in China and an international artwork from GBV survivors. The link to the exhibition: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/cn0mhSgn4m9hK_SpDfKsvw. Based on the above progress, the original strategy and Theory of Change for this outcome is still applicable. There was delay in the capacity development to the local women’s federation staff on coordination of essential services to women and girls experiencing GBV due to CoVID-19 control measures as well as the outbreak in end of 2022. UN Women China Office will need to catch up the progress in 2023. With the further national roll-out of the Domestic Violence Social Service Training Manual and capacity development to local women’s federation staff on coordination of essential services to women and girls experiencing GBV, there will be more women and girls reached by the trained staff and benefiting from receiving quality, coordinated, and survivor-based essential services.