A/HRC/26/17 E/CN.6/2014/8 and discrimination. It supports effective responses to violence against women and girls around the globe by allocating resources where they are most needed and where they stand to have the most impact on the lives of women and girls. 10. The programmes supported by the Trust Fund have shown the potential for real and sustainable impact. The Fund’s grantees demonstrate that violence against women and girls can be prevented by mobilizing communities. They show that access to justice and services can be enhanced even in challenging contexts, such as during and after conflict. They highlight how public institutions can be reformed and refocused to become more responsive to the specific needs of women and girls. The following examples illustrate the impact of the programmes supported by the Trust Fund in furthering progress in such areas. Preventing violence against women and girls by mobilizing communities 11. Social norms, attitudes and behaviours take shape, in part, at the community level. Approaches that mobilize communities are proven, effective strategies for preventing violence against women and girls. 4 They involve multi-tiered interventions that engage women and girls, men and boys, traditional and religious authorities, local Governments and service providers. They challenge power relations based on gender and other markers of social identity by creating spaces for critical reflection, dialogue and engagement. 12. Currently, 30 per cent of Trust Fund grantees are working to mobilize communities and to bolster their capacities to respond to violence against women and girls. The Trust Fund is scaling up and replicating two successful community mobilization approaches in seven countries in Africa (Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania). 13. In a survey conducted by the Coalition of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in six Malawian districts, 41 per cent of people living with HIV/AIDS reported incidents of sexual violence over the previous 12-month period. Among women who reported sexual violence, 25 per cent stated that they had been coerced by their partners into having unprotected sex. 5 14. The work of the Coalition, which is a grass-roots women’s organization, is providing tangible evidence of the effectiveness of the “Stepping Stones” training and communication methodology in preventing intimate partner violence against women living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi. The Coalition’s programme to increase knowledge about gender-based violence, promote HIV/AIDS risk awareness and enhance communication skills reached 3,000 women living with HIV/AIDS, 311 survivors of intimate partner violence and more than 12,000 men and 28,000 women in 144 communities between 2012 and 2013. Each community has established a full-time facilitator team comprised of a couple previously trained in the “Stepping Stones” __________________ 4 5 4/16 See, for example, Lori L. Heise, What works to prevent partner violence? An evidence overview (London, STRIVE Research Consortium, Department for International Development, 2011), pp. 16-24, and WHO and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women: taking action and generating evidence (Geneva, 2010), p. 40. Coalition of Women Living with HIV/AIDS, “Baseline report on intimate partner violence amongst people living with HIV/AIDS”, (May 2012), pp. 14-16. The grantee is also advocating for the reform of Malawi’s marital immunity rule, under which rape within marriage is not considered a crime. 13-61736