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E/CN.6/2018/9
need by including, for the first time, a budget line for core funding to small women ’s
organizations for a maximum of 7 per cent of direct activity costs. This core funding
is separate from and in addition to the 7 per cent all organizations can currently
request for indirect costs.
13. One measure of success and sustainability is the extent to which grantees are
successful in obtaining new and additional funding, beyond the pr oject supported by
the trust fund. In 2017, 6 out of 9 small grant recipients who requested
recommendations managed to mobilize additional funds from other donors. Among
them was Alafia, a small women-led organization in Togo working to eradicate
harmful traditional widowhood practices that increase the risk of HIV infection.
Although a 2012 law grants widows the right to refuse such practices, they remain
widespread, especially in rural areas. Since being awarded a grant by the trust fund,
Alafia has gone on to obtain $25,000 from the African Women’s Development Fund
to encourage discussion among leaders of the Ewe community in order to explore
possibilities for eradicating these practices. Alafia also obtained a second tranche of
funding, totalling $24,306, from the United States Department of State through their
Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund. This project focuses on eradicating harmful
widowhood practices in Aneho communities in the south-east of the country.
14. Another grantee that has been able to secure further funding is the Women’s
Justice Initiative, the only organization in Guatemala working to prevent gender based violence specifically in rural indigenous communities. A small trust fund grant
enabled the organization to help overcome key obstacles that Mayan women face in
accessing justice. In June 2017, the Women’s Justice Initiative was awarded a grant
by Hivos and in July 2017, the Initiative was given a one -year grant of $45,000 by
Dining for Women, a global giving circle. Those two grants will support a number of
activities that the Initiative has initiated with the trust fund ’s support.
15. Small organizations often play a crucial role in empowering women to demand
that existing norms are put into practice. For example, the grantee Equali ty is
implementing a project to promote justice for survivors of gender-based violence in
China. Its particular focus is on empowering women and girl survivors of violence
from marginalized and underserved communities, such as lesbian, bisexual and
transgender women and women living with HIV/AIDS, to advocate for their rights
and gain access to legal assistance and social services. Two new implementing
regulations for the national domestic violence law passed during 2017 in Yunnan
Province directly incorporated perspectives from project experts. The first requires
police to flag situations with a high risk of domestic violence and thereby better
mobilize resources for survivors. The second involves strengthening the protection
order mechanism in the new Anti-Domestic Violence Law. In addition, Equality and
its partners reached out to over 50 survivors of domestic violence to begin collecting
data for future empirical studies that will be used as advocacy tools. Equality and its
implementing partner also trained 82 government officials to improve their
understanding of domestic violence and appropriate legal and police responses. In
addition, in the first six months of 2017, Equality provided services for 61 people, an
increase over the previous year.
16. In Serbia, the grantee Astra, working with a State institution, the Centre for
Human Trafficking Victims’ Protection, implemented a project to establish the
referral procedures for victims of trafficking, many of whom are underage and from
the Roma minority. In the first half of 2017, Astra received 2,106 calls, 75 per cent of
which related to trafficking. Astra identified five new victims of human trafficking
and 15 people at high risk of trafficking or some other form of violence, while
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