• Encourage research aimed at exploring the nature,
F. Change attitudes
extent and causes of violence and collect data and
statistics on its economic and social costs, and its
consequences, and conduct research on the impact
of all laws relevant to combating all forms of violence against women;
Actions to be taken by Governments and
civil society, including non governmental
organizations:
• Work to create violence-free societies by imple-
• Develop common definitions and guidelines and
menting participatory educational programmes
on human rights, conflict resolution and gender
equality, for women and men of all ages, beginning
with girls and boys;
train relevant actors for the collection of data and
statistics on violence against women and ensure
that all cases of violence against women are
recorded systematically and appropriately, whether
they are first reported to the police or to health and
social services;
• Support programmes of peer mediation and
conflict resolution for schoolchildren and special
training for teachers to equip them to encourage
cooperation and respect for diversity and gender;
• Sponsor community-based research and national surveys, including the collection of disaggregated data,
on violence against women, with regard to particular
groups of women, such as women with disabilities,
migrant women workers and trafficked women;
• Encourage innovative education and training in
schools to enhance awareness of gender-based
violence by promoting non-violent conflict resolution, and short- and mid- and long-term strategic
educational goals for achieving gender equality;
• Support evaluations of the impact of measures
and policies, particularly with regard to legislative,
evidentiary and procedural law reform, to address
violence against women with a view to identifying and exchanging good practices and lessons
learned, and initiate intervention and prevention
programmes;
• Introduce and invest in comprehensive public
awareness campaigns, such as "zero tolerance", that
portray violence against women as unacceptable;
• Encourage the promotion in media portrayals of
• Promote the sharing of research results, including
positive images of women and of men, presenting them as cooperative and full partners in the
upbringing of their children, and discourage the
media from presenting negative images of women
and girls;
information on best practices at national, regional
and international levels;
• Explore the possibility of mechanisms such as national
rapporteurs, who report to Governments on the
scale, prevention and combating of violence against
women, particularly trafficking in women and girls.
• Encourage the media to create positive images of
women and men as cooperative and crucial actors
in preventing violence against women through
the development of voluntary international media
codes of conduct, on positive images, portrayals
and representations of women, and on the coverage of the reporting of violence against women;
Action to be taken by the United Nations:
• Consider ways to share good practices and lessons
learned, including establishing a readily accessible
database of good practices and lessons learned
with regard to all forms of violence against women.
• Raise awareness and mobilize public opinion to
eliminate female genital mutilation and other
harmful traditional, cultural or customary practices
that violate the human rights of women and girls
and negatively affect their health;
4