Enabling Environment for Social Accountability in ... - SASANet

CONTINUING EFFORTS AT RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT
DV AND LEGAL ADVOCACY IN RELATED AREAS
The new Law Against Domestic Violence would not have been adopted without the NCAV’s work in
raising public awareness. According to the Chair of the NGO Gal Golomt (Hearth), the NCAV’s “main
achievement is public awareness that DV is a societal issue and that society needs to fight against it.”
Since the adoption of the DV Law, the NCAV has stepped up its efforts to raise public awareness about
DV and provide information about the Law Against Domestic Violence to ensure its implementation
(Finding NCAV 3).
Working with the MSWL’s Department on Children, the NCAV developed children’s educational
materials on DV, entitled “My Family.” In August 2004, the Minister of Education, Culture, and Science
decreed that the DV curriculum be taught at all grade levels in schools across the country, making it the
country’s first nationwide DV-education program for children. 59
In December 2004, during a month-long campaign to raise public awareness on the new law, the NCAV
conducted 10 programs on national and FM radio, one live program on national TV, and a press
conference. The Center also held various training sessions for journalists, NGOs, local-level legal
officers, prosecutors, council members, social workers, and police officers.
The NCAV has had a long-term partnership with the police to promote greater awareness of DV and legal
protections among Mongolia’s law enforcement officers. For example, under a 1998 agreement with the
General Police Department, the NCAV conducted training programs for police officers in UB and various
aimags on working with abusive men. A specially trained instructor at the Ulaanbaatar detention facility
operates the Education for Men Pilot Cabinet, which was also established by the NCAV in 1998. After
the passage of the Law Against Domestic Violence in 2004, a new course was introduced, “Police
Response to Domestic Violence,” which is taught by a human rights professor specially trained by the
NCAV. Through the Center’s work with the Police Academy, a special Men’s Education Laboratory on
DV was also established in that year.
Building on its successful legal advocacy for the Law Against Domestic Violence, the NCAV is currently
working on addressing sexual violence, and specifically, incest. 60 In addition to providing counseling
services, the Center is drafting a law that will address the need to reform the criminal code and the
provision of services for victims. According to the NCAV executive director, the law should provide a
private room for victims in police stations, as well as the opportunity for female victims to speak to a
woman police officer. The executive director also claimed that whereas rape victims generally fail to
report the crime, incest victims are even less likely to do so as “those convicted of incest are sentenced to
death, so their victims do not seek prosecution.” Consequently, the NCAV is proposing a reduction in the
current punishment for these sex crimes.
59 Prior to the curriculum developed in 2004, the NCAV developed a curriculum in 2002 entitled, “Specifics of Working with
Victims of Violence” with an accompanying video and manuals for teachers and students.
60 During a dissemination interview in February 2006, the NCAV executive director indicated that the Center is working with the
International NGO “Asia Pacific Women’s Law and Development” to improve Mongolian women’s access to child support.
When asked how this was connected to issues of violence, she noted that many, if not most, of the women seeking child support
are victims of DV, citing an analysis of family court cases between 2000–02 in which DV was a factor in 58.6 percent of the
divorce cases.