On July 25th at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Eric Goosby announced $5 million from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for the Together for Girls partnership to address violence against girls and boys, with a particular focus on sexual violence against girls. This funding will leverage existing PEPFAR platforms to help partner governments develop and strengthen their programmatic response to National Violence Against Children survey data.

Together for Girls (TfG) is a partnership between public, private, UN and U.S. Government agencies that addresses violence against children. Launched in 2009, the partnership brings together private sector organizations, including the Nduna Foundation, Becton, Dickinson and Company, the CDC Foundation, and Grupo ABC; five United Nations agencies, including UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UN Women, and World Health Organization; and the U.S. Government, through the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention and PEPFAR – which includes the United States Agency for International Development, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Defense and Peace Corps – in collaboration with the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues. The partnership focuses on three pillars:

Conduct national surveys to document the magnitude of violence against children;

Support coordinated program actions at the country level in response to the data; and

Lead global advocacy efforts to raise awareness and promote evidence-based solutions.

With support from TfG partners, National Violence Against Children Surveys have been completed in Swaziland, Tanzania, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, and are in process in Haiti, Malawi, and the Philippines. PEPFAR’s $5 million for the TfG partnership will support countries’ responses to TfG survey data by developing programs and interventions to address the underlying social determinants of sexual violence against children and better support survivors.

PEPFAR is committed to addressing the structural drivers of both violence and HIV and advancing women and girls’ health and rights in order to reduce vulnerability to HIV infection. This will contribute to the Obama Administration’s goal of an AIDS-free generation and free societies of violence so that women and men can realize their full potential.

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