The session will spotlight key findings from the regional analysis with the focus on India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. During this session, ECPAT will discuss specific recommendations for governments and business on how to harmonise and improve legal and policy frameworks to address the worst forms of child labour more effectively. They will present a regional snapshot that reflects good practices as well as legal and policy gaps that need to be addressed by governments and business, and discuss the way forward on how to harmonise and enforce legal and policy frameworks, and what actions to take to better protect children in South Asia.

Speakers include:

• Dr. Rinchen Chopel, Director General of South Asia Initiative to End Violence against Children (SAIEVAC)
• SAARC Apex Body and member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
• Sumnima Tuladhar, Executive Director, CWIN, Nepal
• Shrinkhala Thapa, regional representative of ECPAT International
• Insaf Nizam, from the International Labour Organisation (ILO)

This session is part of the 2nd UN South Asia Forum on Business and Human Rights on 17-19 March 2021, which is being hosted by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UNWG) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

More than 200 million people—64% of U.S. adults—regularly play videos games, and COVID-19 lockdowns have only caused their popularity as a vital social space to surge. While many gamers have positive social experiences, there is also a harmful side of video games, leading to a lack of civility in online interactions—and sometimes outright defamatory interactions.

A recent Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report “Free to Play? Hate, Harassment and Positive Social Experience in Online Games 2020” found that 81% of U.S. adults who played online multiplayer games experienced some form of harassment. Alarmingly, a significant portion of online harassment and abuse targets groups and individuals based on identity characteristics such as race/ethnicity, religion, and gender. Gamers can be exposed to extremism and disinformation linked to white supremacy, Holocaust denial, and other abuse.

On March 15, the Center for Technology Innovation and the Center for Universal Education will host a webinar to think about the world of gaming as a civic space where Americans develop and reinforce social norms that influence how they interact and treat each other. After a brief overview of the ADL report, a moderated panel discussion of experts will consider how laissez-faire attention to these matters, and an overall lack of diversity among gaming developers, may contribute to pernicious interactions.

This Ancillary Event to the 14th UN Congress on Crime and Criminal Justice will present the most current evidence base on ending sexual violence against children and efforts by the international community to reach target 16.2 in the framework of Goal 17. Co-organized by the End Violence Partnership, UNODC, UNICEF, WHO, the INSPIRE Advisory Group, the IGNITE Philanthropy, Together for Girls, the session is an affiliate event of the Together to #ENDViolence Solutions Summit Series.

While this is a closed event, participants can register through their national delegations at: unodc.org/unodc/en/crimecongress/about.html

Speakers:

• Opening remarks by Miwa Kato, Director of Division of Operations at UNODC
• Anna Giudice, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer at UNODC
• Lorraine Radford, technical adviser, UNICEF HQ
• Alex Butchart, Prevention of Violence Coordinator at WHO
• Bernadette Madrid, Child Protection Unit Director at the University of the Philippines Manila
• Sabine Rakotomalala, Country Engagement for End Violence 
• Rute Caldeira, Ignite Philanthropy

This webinar aims to initiate a discussion on the gaps and opportunities with regard to the investigative capabilities of law enforcement agencies in Western Balkan countries to effectively address online CSEA. It will do so by reflecting on the key findings of the above-mentioned study The Lost Cases: Findings and recommendations from an in-depth assessment of gaps in the investigation of online child sexual abuse cases in Albania, which has unpacked some of the bottlenecks that are compromising the investigation and prosecution of online crimes against children in Albania.

The webinar, the sixth in a series of eight webinars covering the INSPIRE strategies, will present the strategy “Income and economic strengthening” in more depth. 

On 17 March 2021 from 14h30-16h00 (CET) the sixth webinar will cover:

• Overview of the strategy and brief overview of findings from the Global status report on preventing violence against children 2020
• Cash transfers and impacts on gender-based violence
• Social protection and violence against children
• Q & A session with the experts

Confirmed speakers for the webinar include Greta Massetti (US CDC), Shalini Roy (International Food Policy Research Institute) and Tia Palermo (University of Buffalo). The webinar will be moderated by Mark Canavera (Columbia University).

VOICE and UNICEF are creating space for local women’s groups to have their voices heard to help set priorities and influence decision-making within the humanitarian system.

In a Listening Session designed for potential donors to hear directly from women leaders, the VOICE and UNICEF “We Must Do Better” Webinar will seek to be a “state of the industry” assessment on the aid system’s funding of women and girl-led organizations.

The conversation will center findings from the VOICE “We Must Do Better” research (the funding-related findings), along with insight and shared experiences from the local women leaders participating in the panel.

A joint initiative from the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), Education Cannot Wait (ECW) and the UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI), a new core resource package for gender in education in emergencies, the EiE-GenKit, is launching on 3 March. 

Join the launch event in the lead up to International Women’s Day 2021, on Wednesday 3 March 07:00 EST | 13:00 CET | 15:00 EAT. 

The event will be available in English, French, Portuguese, and Arabic.  The event will start with a short film providing an overview of the rationale behind developing the EiE-GenKit, its contents and usage, and its relevance in the current COVID-19 climate. An intergenerational panel discussion will follow, featuring the leadership of INEE, ECW and UNGEI, and representatives from UNICEF, Plan Canada, Compact for Young People in Humanitarian Action, and the Generation Equality Youth Task Force. 

In a time where the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing gender and education inequalities, particularly affecting adolescent girls, the EiE-GenKit is a global good to improve gender-responsiveness and inclusivity in EiE interventions.