Publications

This report details the results achieved by UNICEF for and with children worldwide in 2016. It covers the organization’s programme work, humanitarian action, partnerships and advocacy efforts in all strategic sectors, with an emphasis on reaching every child and accelerating progress for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged girls and boys. The report also highlights UNICEF’s innovations, its efforts to improve efficiency and effectiveness, and the stories of individual children and families directly affected by UNICEF’s work in the course of its 70th anniversary year.

UNICEF's Strategic Plan 2014–2017 guides the organization’s work in support of the realization of the rights of every child. At the core of the Strategic Plan, UNICEF's equity strategy – which emphasizes reaching the most disadvantaged and excluded children, caregivers and families – translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. The following report summarizes how UNICEF and its partners contributed to gender equality and the empowerment of girls and women in 2016 and reviews the impact of these accomplishments on children and the communities in which they live.

Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) is budgeting that integrates a gender perspective, and tracks how budgets respond to gender equality and women’s rights requirements. The use of gender responsive budgeting in the HIV response can facilitate equality and fairness in terms of HIV budget allocations and expenditures to ending the HIV epidemic, while also increasing transparency, accountability and efficiency. The emphasis on HIV budget allocations and expenditures is crucial, as inadequate funding hinders governments and other relevant actors from successfully implementing any policy or program.

Schools should be safe places for everyone. But in the Philippines, students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) too often find that their schooling experience is marred by bullying, discrimination, lack of access to LGBT-related information, and in some cases, physical or sexual assault. This report documents the range of abuses against LGBT students in secondary school. It details widespread bullying and harassment, discriminatory policies and practices, and an absence of supportive resources that undermine the right to education under international law and put LGBT youth at risk.

While child marriage is widely considered a human rights issue closely connected to gender inequality, the significance of the practice’s impacts at both the individual and societal levels suggests that ending child marriage may play an important role in alleviating poverty and in promoting economic development. To date, however, there has been relatively little in the way of rigorous assessment of the economic impacts of child marriage or how much child marriage may "cost" countries and societies. This brief summarizes results from an analysis of the impacts of child marriage on a few selected health outcomes, specifically early childbirths, maternal mortality and intimate partner violence. It does not include analyses for other aspects of women’s health that are likely to be affected by child marriage to various extents, such as maternal morbidity, obstetric fistula, female genital mutilation/cutting, sexually-transmitted infections (including HIV and AIDS) and psychological well-being.

The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants is an important reaffirmation by Heads of State and Government and High Representatives of their intention “to fully protect the human rights of all refugees and migrants, regardless of status”. A key outcome of the Declaration is the creation of two new Global Compacts, one on refugees and one on migrants. These Global Compacts, to be agreed by government representatives at the United Nations (UN) in 2018, will articulate common commitments in respect of the protection of refugees and migrants. This working document by the Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts, a multilateral initiative supported by 26 organizations, sets out what these protection and inclusion measures entail with respect to six priority issues involving refugee and migrant children (sometimes referred to collectively as “children on the move”) and what provisions it would consequently be appropriate to include in the two Global Compacts.

This first progress report shows that members of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition have mobilized around strengthening HIV primary prevention. There are clear signs of renewed political commitment and strengthened institutional arrangements for planning and managing prevention programmes. Most member countries have moved fast to develop HIV prevention action plans, and there are many examples of excellent and innovative new initiatives. Furthermore, interest in the HIV prevention agenda and the Global HIV Prevention Coalition is growing. A global accountability process has been set up, with score cards that track progress across a range of high-priority prevention programme areas.

According to the WHO, about 2.3 million people are co-infected with HIV and the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Moreover, there were an estimated 1.75 million new hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections worldwide in 2015. HCV usually presents only mild symptoms, if any, until it is at an advanced stage, thereby making it difficult to recognize the disease early.

The fundamental purpose of producing ILGA's annual State Sponsored Homophobia publication is to compile information on the world’s laws that are relevant to sexual orientation in one place. In addition to ILGA’s membership of around 1300 SOGIESC-related organisations, this publication is primarily designed to provide a body of accurate and credible reference sources to researchers, human rights defenders, agencies, organisations, institutions and allies. Building on the authorship of previous editions, this year the publication provides significantly more comprehensive coverage of each State where specific sexual orientation law pertains. Through the use of hyperlinks (in red font throughout) rather than footnotes, the digital form of this publication connects to a substantial body of primary and secondary sources.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Mainline Foundation, and this provides an opportunity to reflect on twenty-five years of harm reduction. Our mission to reduce the number of HIV infections among drug users through education – the purpose of Mainline’s establishment in 1991 – has been achieved. Or at least the number of HIV infections is no longer on the rise, and most users have a roof over their head. But the fringes of this phenomenon remain. Crystal meth is slowly seeping into the Netherlands. GHB is being quietly used in the provinces. And freebase cocaine dealers are still doing a roaring trade each week when those who depend on drugs receive their allowance from the budget-maintenance service. And abroad, where Mainline is also active, improving the legal status of people who use drugs remains high on the agenda.