Violence against Women (VAW) is a violation of the human rights of women and girls. VAW has serious consequences for the health and wellbeing of VAW survivors, their children, their families and their communities.
Having reliable and comparable data on VAW prevalence is essential to inform and monitor our prevention and our response efforts. However, there remains a lack of data on VAW prevalence and a lack of skills on how to measure this.
Australia's support to the kNOwVAWdata initiative
The kNOwVAWdata initiative was launched in 2016 in response to a growing demand for more accurate and reliable measurement of VAW prevalence.
kNOwVAWdata is supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in partnership with UNFPA, the University of Melbourne and Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS).
What is kNOwVAWdata
kNOwVAWdata's main objective is to strengthen regional and national capacities to measure VAW.
kNOwVAWdata is helping to ensure availability of reliable, high quality VAW data by developing skillsets of national institutions and professionals to conduct VAW prevalence surveys and data analysis in the Asia Pacific region.
kNOwVAWdata has already supported a number of VAW prevalence surveys including in Bhutan, Indonesia, Kiribati, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Viet Nam.
kNOwVAWdata uses internationally recognised, best practice survey methodologies, such as the methodology developed for the World Health Organization (WHO) Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence, and the Domestic Violence module of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).
kNOwVAWdata is also developing a four-week long curriculum hosted by the University of Melbourne. The course was successfully piloted this year. Those that participate in the course will form a professional pool of regional experts who can support one another and others in measuring national prevalence of VAW. This will help to strengthen the availability and quality of data and inform more effective policy and program responses to prevent and end VAW.
The kNOwVAWdata course covers all key concepts of VAW measurement, including:
- Tools to generate reliable and comparable data
- Processes involved in undertaking a national prevalence survey
- Strategies for keeping interviewed women safe
- Data analysis, interpretation and use, including strategies for ensuring an inclusive approach to understanding VAW, among other topics.
The kNOwVAWdata course will be conducted annually with different institutions through twinning arrangements, initially in the Asia-Pacific region, but with the long term vision to explore expanding in other regions.