Outcome KHM_D_3.2

Women, girls and LGBTIQ persons who experience violence are empowered to use available, accessible and quality essential services and recover from violence. [UN Women SP 2018-2021 Output 11]

This outcome has not been fully achieved in 2021. However progress has been made. In particular, the capacity of nine networks of women migrant workers have been strengthened remarkably, contributing to mitigating risks to unsafe migration and to gaining access to services, including VAW services. Networks enable women migrant workers and their family members to learn from each other, and collectively analyse information that potentially causes unsafe migration for community members utilising skills and knowledge gained from participating with UNWomen’s programme to understand risks of unsafe migration. Stigma that is fueled by the notion that women migrant workers are the importers of the virus and discrimination against returning women migrant workers has been addressed through network activities such as home visits, peer to peer discussions and network meetings. This is a result of the positive connections, joint efforts and similar experiences across the networks have educated community members and authorities about the positive contributions of migrant workers, especially women migrant workers, to society. Women including women migrant workers and LGBTIQ persons have more access to information on GBV services, labor migration, sexual reproductive and women rights. With UN Women support, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) has been piloted since late 2020 to provide an alternate option in accessing to information regarding to safe migration, GBV services available, risks to trafficking, rights of migrant workers, including essential information on sexual reproductive health and COVID-19 prevention, in connection with Helpline 1280 which is operating by UNWomen CSO partner. Around 12K-17K IVR Calls per each quarter. In 2021 and 400 IVR Calls were from women, 32 IVR Calls were from LGBTIQ persons, while the rest of IVR calls were of unknown gender. Additionally, it is reported there are 494 IVR calls that pressed to listen to information and key messages on violence against women, including women migrant workers and safe migration. Further the mobile application which specifically targets women migrant workers and their family members has been launched and prom oted through women networks and relevant stakeholders including CSOs, private recruitment agencies, and government. The mobile app aimed to provide accessible information in a convenient manner to support women for safer migration. Combined campaign approaches, including mass media (radio) and social media (Facebook) have reached wider audiences exceeding the annual targets. Media campaigns cover VAW service information during the pandemic, women migrant workers contribution to society, breaking the silence, and stopping victim blaming, safe migration, job opportunities for returned migrant workers. 19 radio shows have been broadcasted throughout 2021. UN Women supported MOWA and the 3 target provincial departments of women’s affairs to have basic PPE including the rapid test kits, masks and hand sanitisers and distribute to GBV Working Group Members both at the provincial and district levels. Key messages on helplines and VAW service responses have been printed on the bottles of hand sanitisers and distributed to the community through the GBV working group. Service directories have been developed to support service providers to identify the available services and the contact information which contribute to strengthening the referral and coordinated services. Service directories mapped the essential service available at the sub-national levels in Siem Reap, Sihanoukville and Kampong Speu province. The development process involved the provincial department of women’s affairs from the three target provinces, MOWA, UN Women and FHI 360 (an international non-profit organisation working health) to review and update the service mapping directories developed by GBV Working Groups in Kampong Speu, Sihanoukville and Siem Reap. UN Women also supported MoWA to develop monitoring tools to support MoWA's role in monitoring minimum service standards. A monitoring checklist was developed to ensure that relevant government service providers and NGOs are providing essential services in line with the minimum service standards and that key areas for improvements are identified so they can be addressed. Even though COVID-19 has continued to hit harder in Cambodia, the service providers continue to provide services to VAW survivors via phone helplines and on-line platforms.

Women, girls and LGBTIQ persons who experience violence are empowered to use available, accessible and quality essential services and recover from violence. [UN Women SP 2018-2021 Output 11]

During the reporting year, UN Women made significant achievements for this outcome. Women migrant returnees, potential women migrant workers and their family members now have greater access to reliable information related to migration that is relevant, more accessible, and more convenient through the My Journey Mobile App which has been downloaded onto 1,799 devices. In addition, with UN Women's support community led women's networks in target areas have demonstrated an increase in confidence and soft skills (i.e., community mobilisation, organisation and facilitation of community awareness raising events and communication for positive interaction) that are seen as an asset to sustain some of the network activities and grassroot movement for women supporting women migrant workers. According to narrative progress reports, participants attending the community women led network activities, awareness campaign and using My Journey Mobile App have improved knowledge on risks to violence against women and its consequences, service information, safe migration practices, contributions of women migrant workers for family livelihoods and the communities, the positive migration experiences of women, and COVID-19 risk mitigation as well. They would be able to tell where and how to seek for help if gender-based violence reported, key documents needed for working overseas and key measures for preventing COVID-19 infection. Women also have improved access to information, referral to essential services and COVID-19 life-saving information as well as resources. UN Women's support to the Helplines of the Ministry of Women's (MoWA) and the Child Helpline Cambodia (CHC) has contributed to improve access to services for women survivors, including women migrant workers. In 2022, 150 out of 152 cases reported via the MoWA and CHC Helpline are gender-based violence (GBV). Ten out of GBV reported cases are related to women migrant workers. This indicates helplines are relevant and accessible services that has encouraged women and their family members report and seek for services. MOWA has also recognised UN Women's support to strengthening the capacity of government service providers and upgrading helplines which has contributed to enhancing delivering coordinated quality services for ending violence against women migrant workers. UN Women made strong progress in supporting the Ministry of Women's Affairs to strengthen the coordination and functioning of multi-sectoral gender-based violence coordination groups both at the national and sub-national levels. At the national level, regular meeting of Technical Working Group on Gender-Gender Based Violence (TWGG-GBV) have maintained. This serves as a significant national platform to monitor and follow up the implementation of the 3rd National Action Plan to Prevent Violence against Women (NAPVAW) by line ministries and Civil Society Organisation members. UN Women has collaborated with UNFPA contributed significantly to strengthening the capacity of Forensic Committees for Sexual Violence on the updated Forensic Medicine Protocol/Form on sexual violence from three target provinces of UN Women and eight target provinces of UNFPA. Strengthened national coordination together with joint work between UN Women and UNFPA seems to contribute to strengthening coordinated services. As such, from January to June 2022, 218 rape cases were reported to health services and 133 forensic examinations for rape/sexual violence cases were conducted and reports sent to the courts. At the sub-national levels, nine Gender Based Violence Working Groups were strengthened through quality meetings to follow up and monitor reported GBV cases in UN Women's target provinces. It was observed that there is an increase of collaborative coordination among chairs, secretariats, and members of the GBV Working Groups on the GBV case reporting. There was a request to the Ministry of Women's Affairs to provide a simplified reporting template for the members to record the case for quarterly reporting. The GBV Working Group meeting a space for each member to share challenges and seek alternative solutions from their line supervision at the provincial and district levels in dealing cases that were viewed as beyond their capacity or roles. Another significant progress made during this reporting year is the kick- off for the final evaluation of the 3rd NAPVAW. UN Women has made strong progress in providing technical expertise for the Ministry of Women's Affairs to conduct the evaluation of the 3rd National Action Plan to Prevent Violence against Women. The purpose of the evaluation was to collect information and evidence from key stakeholders including women survivors and marginalized groups of women, CSOs, development partners, and government agencies on the successes and challenges when implementing the 3rd NAPVAW against its targets and strategies in the results framework, and to provide recommendations for the 4th NAPVAW. UN Women has ensured that participatory approaches are applied, and the evaluation follows UN Women's evaluation policy and principles. By December 2022, the evaluation team had met with/interviewed a total of 28 persons from 13 different organisations from December 8 to 27 including team members from The Australia-Cambodia Cooperation for Equitable Sustainable Services (ACCESS), UNFPA, Bar Association of Kingdom of Cambodia (AKC) and Expert on Gender Based Violence, and 9 relevant Non-Governmental Organisations. The consultant team plans to conduct the interviews with national and sub-national stakeholders in January and the preliminary findings will be consolidated in the next quarter. Based on results observed above, the original strategy and Theory of Change for this outcome remain strongly applicable. The joint work between UN Women and UNFPA to strengthen forensic service with gender lens is seen as an effective approach in delivering minimum services for survivors of gender-based violence. Further, national, and sub-national coordination has continued to play a significant role to bring relevant line ministries to be accountable for the implementation of the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women (NAPVAW). Community women led networks are the important actors to expand access to information and provide immediate support for their members. At the same time, the networks seem to sustain when new skills and knowledge obtained from UN Women's support are utilised for information dissemination and grassroot advocacy.

Women, girls and LGBTIQ persons who experience violence are empowered to use available, accessible and quality essential services and recover from violence. [UN Women SP 2018-2021 Output 11]

The outcome result was achieved during this reporting year. Women subject to violence including women migrant workers reach support effectively when they need it. In 2023, a total of 130 cases of gender-based violence received support through the Helpline of Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) and Child Helpline Cambodia (CHC). The cases reported indicates that more women and their families become aware of the services and come forward to access services. This was made possible because of the dedicated effort and effective delivery of services by MoWA and CHC. A returning women migrant worker has confirmed during the focus group discussion for the endline-survey on quality service provision “My mother reached out to the Child Helpline to seek assistance for my return to Cambodia from China. Thanks to the Safe and Fair (SAF) programme, I also received vital support services such as food, legal aid, and counselling. I have now secured employment, which gives me the confidence to support myself and take care of my mother. I am determined to avoid returning to the circumstances where I endured violence.” Capacity Development Result: front-line service providers have strengthened their capacities to effectively provide helpline services. Forty-seven (47) front-line service providers (31 women and 16 men from eight different Provincial Departments of Women’s Affairs (PDoWAs) and police officers learnt about the key guiding principles including a human rights approach, ensuring safety, empowerment, privacy, and confidentiality, provide guidance and procedures for the helpline operators for responding to calls from Gender Based Violence (GBV) survivors in the Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs) for Helpline Operators to ensure qualify identification of and response to cases of violence against women including women migrant workers. Based on the evaluation of the pre and post-tests, participants increased their learning 13%. A key area with significant change was the understanding of paraverbal communication with 74%, a plan for addressing lost calls and helpline role with 95% correct response. UN Women contributed through SAF programme by supporting MoWA to co-facilitate the session on the SOPs. This enhanced capacity contributed to effective provision of support services to victims/survivors of violence. CHC front-line staff has continued to apply the survivor-centred approaches and quality essential service response to women subjected to violence including women migrant workers through counselling, information sharing and referral services to other service providers via helpline (1280), Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and My Journey Mobile Application. One participant from CHC mentioned during a focus group discussion for the end-line survey on quality service provision "Before SAF, many front-line service providers were unaware of the unique challenges faced by women migrant workers. The training sessions opened their eyes to these issues and provided them with practical skills to offer more effective support." As a result, throughout 2023, the IVR continued to receive a high number of calls with a total of 17,781 calls. Of the 17,781 IVR calls, 84 calls were from women, 53 calls from men, 16 calls from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ), and 17,628 from unknown-age and unknown gender callers. UN Women contributed through providing financial support to CHC to operate the Helpline (1280), which is linked with IVR. Moreover, UN Women also provided financial support to CHC to upgrade the My Journey Mobile Application to ensure privacy of the users and provide most updated services information. Peer Network: the community-based peer leader and its members at Borsedth District, Kampong Spue Province has continued to share information about service providers for survivors of GBV and sharing the information about the My Journey Mobile Application. Sreymom, a member of the peer network said “I use the App to share information about safe migration in my community. I've also shared the App with relatives who want to migrate and for those who are already in Thailand and don’t have support or know which path to take if they get in trouble. So, I asked them to download the App, listen to it, and use its features. They told me the App is very helpful because it provides contact information and has everything to solve our problems. They love the App because now they have something reliable to rely on.” This comprehensive community based approached contributed to informative support service to survivor of violence. Community Outreach: the endline survey indicates that the community outreach remains significant and effective to improve the awareness raising among women and community and to access quality services. As quoted by one of the participants during the focus group discussion: "Through SAF, we have conducted outreach programmes in communities, where we have established peer educator groups and focal points. These individuals continue to raise awareness about safe migration and essential services within their communities. This support is crucial because it empowers family members of survivors to know whom to contact for assistance in their villages and communities. Additionally, SAF has also helped us build strong connections with local authorities, so we can work together better.” The achievement above indicates that the planned strategy is largely applicable and relevant. Through enhancing the publicly available of services information and quality essential service response, women, girls and LGBTIQ persons who experienced violence and community are empowered to come forward and seek for services. Lesson learned suggests the promotion and implementation of helpline SOPs are necessary to extend nation-wide to ensure the quality of GBV services response. In addition, the extension of the community outreach to support women including women migrant workers and their family members to ensure the available and quality service delivery and understand their needs and challenges remains significant and relevant to Cambodia context. Lastly, the continuation to strengthen the migrant workers and community-based peer networks is crucial to build the trust and confidence of women subject to violence including the migrant workers to access support services, availability of safe spaces, dissemination of information, and advocacy efforts related to ending violence against women.