Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls, the empowerment of women, and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action, and peace and security.

UN Women was established to accelerate progress in meeting their needs worldwide. UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes, and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide.

In Indonesia, UN Women works with the government, civil society organizations (CSOs), academia, the media, youth activists, the private sector, and the public to address national gender equality priorities and women’s empowerment.

Placing the advancement of women’s rights at the centre of our work, UN Women Indonesia has three key programmes: 1) Ending Violence Against Women; 2) Women’s Economic Empowerment; and 3) Governance, Peace and Resilience.

UN Women is committed to ensuring all women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence.

One in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence, primarily by an intimate partner. Violence against women and girls is a human rights violation, and the immediate and long-term physical, sexual, and mental consequences for women and girls can be devastating, including death.

Violence negatively affects women’s general well-being and prevents women from fully participating in society. It impacts their families, their community, and the country at large. It has tremendous costs, from greater strains on health care to legal expenses and losses in productivity.

At least 155 countries have passed laws on domestic violence, and 140 have legislation on sexual harassment in the workplace (World Bank 2020). However, challenges remain in enforcing these laws, limiting women and girls’ access to safety and justice.

Not enough is done to prevent violence, and when it does occur, it often goes unpunished. A woman’s right to live free from violence is upheld by international agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Indonesia has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) into Law No.

7 of 1984 concerning Ratification of the Convention Concerning the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

By ratifying this global convention, the Indonesian government agrees to prevent and address any discrimination against women and girls. It is obligated to develop and implement policies in line with the CEDAW framework. In 2022, Indonesia passed a progressive law, namely Law No. 12 of 2022, concerning the Crime of Sexual Violence. This law mandates the Central and Regional Government to prevent and respond to sexual violence in a fast, unified, and integrated manner.

This allows us to support duty-bearers in implementing the Law.

Based on the Violence Against Women’s Survey (SPHPN) conducted by MoWECP in 2021, 1 in 4 women aged 15-64 years experience violence in their lifetime in Indonesia.

According to the Komnas Perempuan Annual Report on Violence Against Women (VAW), there were 401.975 VAW cases reported by service providers across Indonesia, with 67 VAW of WLHIV, experienced by women living with HIV/AIDS, as reported by the National Women Living with HIV Network (IPPI) and other service providers.

Since 2021, UN Women has been supporting IPPI to take a role as an intermediary organization in responding to violence against women living with HIV. As an intermediary organization, they conduct community scanning to identify reports of VAW cases and liaise with WLHIIV and stakeholders to coordinate referrals in health, social, and legal services for the victims able to access the services.

IPPI has so far expanded this initiative to 10 provinces (North Sumatera, Lampung, DKI Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, DI Yogyakarta, Bali, East Nusa Tenggara, West Kalimantan, and North Sulawesi), maintained a system for reporting VAW in WLH (DELILA – Dengar, Lindungi & Laporkan), and since 2023 contributed the reporting of cases in WLH to the Komnas Perempuan Annual VAW report.

In 2022 – 2023, UN Women supported local hospitals to integrate HIV – VAW services to increase access of VAW victims to coordinated essential services.

The local hospitals are RSUD Adhyatma in Semarang, RSUP Prof.

Dr. I.G.N.G Ngoerah (RSUP Sanglah) in Bali, and RSUD Tarakan in Jakarta. Through UN Women’s support, the RSUD Adhyatma Semarang successfully developed the SOP on HIV – VAW Integrated Services and disseminated it to relevant key stakeholders. It is declared as the first hospital in Central Java Province with integrated HIV – VAW services. RSUP Sanglah and RSUD Tarakan will follow soon. An important lesson from this initiative highlights the need for adequate resourcing to match the service demand among WLHIV with the hospital provider’s supply-side capacity, including personnel and budgetary requirements.

Hence, costing of the service package comprising HIV and VAW services is needed to inform service providers and program payers of the budget estimate and to advocate for funding allocations to resource the program at its optimum.

Violence against women and girls has tremendous costs for societies, including costs that impact women and girls, their families, and communities, as well as the health, social, welfare, and legal system.

Identifying the cost that a victim would need along her journey to access various essential services is critical to ensure the availability of the services.

Cost analysis on the availability of HIV testing, prevention, treatment equipment, and other essential services for women living with HIV victims of VAW is therefore necessary to inform service providers (both government and non-government) to allocate sufficient budget.

Costing studies aim to identify, measure, and value relevant resource use that a party expends in consumption.

In a cost-of-illness study in which the goal is to value in monetary terms the total loss attributed to exposure such as VAW, for instance, the total economic value of VAW is determined by the size of the household expenditures spent on VAW services and the lost earnings of the victims.

The measurement is retrospective and mirrors the amount of resources that were spent in actually in response to an incidence. Other costing studies aim to estimate the future consumption of resources for the purpose of program planning and budgeting.

Such studies typically group cost items by resource categories and can further delineate these costs by the responsible party (i.e., payers, funders) expected to fund a specific resource component.

Having access to reliable cost data is critical for national governments invested in addressing the burden of VAW, their funding partners, and program managers as they design, plan, and scale up VAW programs.

Cost data are also valuable for advocating for increased investment in VAW programs. Understanding facility costs can help national and sub-national governments plan to allocate resources and better inform rational budgeting.

The costing study analysis of HIV-VAW service integration will be carried out in two phases:

1. The first phase will focus on the costing of community service delivery in responding to VAW cases in WLHIV.