1. Background

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (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. The fundamental objective of UN Women is to enhance national capacity and ownership to enable national partners to formulate gender responsive laws and policies and to upscale successful strategies to deliver on national commitments to gender equality.

The work of UN Women Cambodia is informed by the Strategic Plan of UN Women 2018-2021 and its Strategic Note for 2016 – 2018, aligned with the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF).  The programme is focused on the four UN Women global impact areas of political participation and leadership, economic empowerment, ending violence against women (EVAW), and peace, security and humanitarian action, and national planning and budgeting.  These five focus areas align to national priorities of the RGC[i] and to Cambodia’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons; the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and other relevant instruments.  Most recently, the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, entered into force on 8 March 2017,[1] highlights ASEAN’s resolve to combat trafficking and provide effective safeguards and protection to victims.

Key policy documents of the current mandate of the government, including the National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP) and the Royal Government of Cambodia’s (RGC) Strategic Plan for Gender Equality (Neary Rattanak IV) highlight EVAW/G as a government priority, and the National Pan of Action (NPA) of the National Committee for Counter Trafficking in Persons.  RGC strategies to prevent and respond to VAW/G are elaborated in the NPA. UN Women advocates for policies and programmes that are evidence-based and evidence-building, enabling responses to VAW to be grounded into a continuing cycle of evidence-to-policy-to-practice. 

2. Objective of UN Women’s Support

UN Women, through the Preventing and Mitigating the Impacts of Trafficking through Women’s Empowerment Project intends to deliver rapid interventions that mitigate the impact of human trafficking and builds resilient communities. Cambodia has an opportunity to promote an integrated response prioritizing women’s protection, empowerment, participation and leadership targeting at-risk communities and promoting gender responsive policy development.

To further improve the response UN Women has identified mobile women’s centers (MWC) as an important mechanism to reach women at risk or that have been subjected to trafficking.  The MWC will provide information on legal rights and referral services, as well as minor but urgently needed health interventions that women lack access to. These MWC will also provide an opportunity for action research to collect primary information during service provision to document experiences, map existing referral systems and identify gaps.    

3. Specific Task

UN Women seeks an international and/or national non-government organization to develop and implement mobile women’s centers (MWC) in three target areas: Oddar Meanchey, Poipet, Koh Kong Provinces. The MWC will be established in partnership with a provider experienced in working with vulnerable populations. 

The MWC will provide information on legal rights and referral services, as well as minor but urgently needed health interventions that women lack access to. Specific areas to provide information and referrals include: how to legalise working status; law enforcement in case of trafficking or other forms of violence; vocational training and skills development, among others.

The specific tasks needed before the project starts are as follows:

1. Deliverable: agreed detailed workplan. Meet with UN Women and partner stakeholders to discuss this TOR and prepare detailed workplan that includes services to be provided;
2. Deliverable: mapping through desk review and consultations. Meet with existing relevant service providers and other stakeholders, NGOs, Migration Resource Centers, unions and private sectors at the national and sub-national level to gather inputs/information and incorporate them into detail workplan;
3. Deliverable: inception report. Produce inception report including explanation of monitoring approaches;
4. Deliverable: mid-term and draft final report. Produce progress and draft final reports on the implementation results; outlining key achievements. The second report should also identify best practices, lessons learnt, and potential strategies for future interventions and required resources. A specific reporting format will be provided;
5. Deliverable: report of validation meeting. Present the reports to UN Women and relevant partner stakeholders;
6. Deliverable: final report. Review the comments and update report and strategic approaches based on the comments and feedback of UN Women and relevant partner stakeholders. The final project report should include findings, recommendations and lessons learnt to UN Women to inform future programming including life stories of people that have accessed services, or those providing the services
7. Deliverable: printed report. Printing project report, including life stories of people that have accessed services, or those providing the services.

4. Expected Outputs

Outcome 1: At-risk border communities are resilient to human trafficking and related escalation, focusing especially on women

• Output 1: Persons living in at risk border communities are more aware of their rights and benefit from increased and more effective gender sensitive services for the reintegration and empowerment of victims
  • Output Indicator 1a: Number of women and LGBT+ persons that access mobile women’s centers services, by type of service
  • Output Indicator 1b: Number of women and LGBT+ persons referred to services by mobile women’s centers, according to their needs
  • Output Indicator 1c: Number of Women that access economic empowerment actions

5. Project Duration: August 2018 to February 2019

6. Budget Limit: budget proposal should not exceed USD 100,000.00

7. Qualifications/Experience of the Applying Organisation

Successful provider will have:

• experience in working with vulnerable populations,
• knowledge of gender based violence, protocols on responding to women and girls that have been subjected to violence, trafficking in persons,
• experience in providing services, preferably through mobile units
• knowledge of available services, especially those linked to referrals as stated above,
• capacity to support action research (collection of anonymous data), and
• Capacity to rapidly deploy services in target areas.