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Spotlight Initiative's Safe and Fair Programme, worked among ASEAN countries and engaged with employers’ organizations to improve the working conditions of women migrant workers. This included building the capacity of 1,003 employers in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam to address the concerns of women migrant workers. A group vulnerable to exploitation, harassment and abuse. Spotlight Initiative partnered with the ASEAN Confederation of Employers (ACE) to develop policy briefs that made the business case for preventing violence and harassment at work and detailed…

Spotlight Initiative worked with Muslim religious leaders – and in partnership with Tajikistan’s State Agency Committee on Religious Affairs and the Regulation of Traditions, Celebrations, and Ceremonies (CRA)  to shifting attitudes, practices and norms to improve gender equality, promote healthy relationships, promote sexual and reproductive health and rights, and prevent gender-based violence (including domestic violence and early marriage). It trained 540 male religious leaders, including Imams using the ‘Healthy Lifestyle’ handbook and encouraged them to address these issues in sermons and…

The Kyrgyzstan Programme set up a Participatory Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (P-MER) function, a joint monitoring mission to Osh and Naryn regions in April 2022 with a group consisting of 13 representatives from key ministries and departments of the Government of Kyrgyz Republic, including the Office of the President, 8 Civil Society National Reference Group members, 14 representatives of the UN implementing agencies of Spotlight Initiative and the Programme Coordination Unit (PCU) and four media representatives. All members of the team came together to agree on a common vision, plan…

In 2021, Spotlight Initiative in Tajikistan supported the establishment of the School of Gender Activists (SGA). This initiative is the first-of-its-kind, aimed at building the capacities of CSOs working to end VAWG. The SGA works to train up local experts who can advise the Committee of Women and Family Affairs, as well as other ministries implementing and promoting gender policies in Tajikistan. The programme to establish the SGA was split into two phases. The first focused on individuals already working within NGOs, while the second targeted youth aged 18-35. The programme also engaged with…

In Kyrgyzstan, Spotlight Initiative worked with parliamentarians to end violence against women and girls. A key achievement was the establishment of the Council on the Rights of Women, Children, and Gender Equality in 2022, by order of the Torago of the Jogorku Kenesh (the Speaker of the Parliament). This Council serves as a crucial liaison between parliamentarians and women’s rights organisations. It supported the development of a strategic action plan for 2023-2026, focused on enhancing civic engagement in law-making. This plan facilitated the participation of women’s rights groups…

Spotlight Initiative's Safe and Fair programme in Southeast Asia was designed to promote safer labour migration in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. The programme was designed in recognition that women migrant workers in ASEAN countries are at an increased risk of violence, trafficking and exploitation.  The Safe and Fair programme helped to develop guidance for Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) as a tool for service providers to support more coordinated responses to violence against women, including women migrant workers. Due to the multi-faceted nature of violence…

This video provides practical tips for essential service providers on how to engage with survivors in a gender-sensitive and survivor-centred manner. This video was developed as part of the programme "Safe and Fair: Realizing women migrant workers’ rights and opportunities in the ASEAN region (2018–2023)". 

Spotlight Initiative’s Kyrgyzstan Programme revised and updated existing ethical guidelines and protocols for data collection, sharing and reporting on SGBV/VAWG, and integrating confidentiality and safety provisions. In 2022, the programme provided capacity development to the Office of the National Statistics Committee (NSC), and other responsible public bodies on collecting statistics based on recent legislative amendments related to gender-based violence, to develop standardised reporting forms and ethical protocols for the use of VAWG data as well as digitise case management. These efforts…

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, many Spotlight Initiative programmes were already being implemented and teams had to quickly adapt implementation to changing realities. Overall, Spotlight Initiative rapidly accelerated and redirected more than USD 21 million across programmes to address VAWG in the context of COVID-19. For example:

Mobile and remote services were developed and reinforced to address the acute needs of women and girls. For example, the Zimbabwe programme scaled up mobile one-stop centre service provision, exceeding the set target by 300% and bringing women with…

In Kyrgyzstan, Spotlight programme used a mobile game, “Mystery of Sary Kol”, to raise awareness of the dangers of child marriage, reaching over 39,000 players. This game was developed as a follow-up to the successfully designed and launched “Spring in Bishkek” mobile game in 2021, which focused on forced marriage. Both games were jointly designed with adolescent girls.

According to a survey of players of “Mystery of Sary Kol”, the game has significantly influenced players’ beliefs that child marriage is a crime (86% of players), improved the willingness of players to help a friend who…