The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in partnership with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Southern African Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation (SARPCCO), is implementing a regional project aimed at developing effective law enforcement responses to violence against women and children in Southern Africa. This 3 year project financed by the Austrian Development Agency, has been developed around the new UNODC Handbook on Effective Police Responses to Violence against Women and its Training Curriculum. The project seeks to improve capacity of law enforcement officials and national criminal justice systems in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe as well as in the rest of the SADC region and will be one of the first UNODC projects to utilise the Handbook and its Training Curriculum.

Within the framework of this regional project and following the successful completion of a regional training workshop in Pretoria from 29 November - 3 December 2010 and the first national training workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe from 7 March - 11 March 2011, UNODC, SADC and SARPCCO will now present a national training workshop in Pretoria, South Africa from 23 - 27 May 2011.

The purpose of the national training workshop aimed at police officials is:

• To develop and train a group of national trainers to conduct training or assist in training other trainers on effective law enforcement responses to violence against women in each of the six beneficiary Member States;

• To develop an interactive national training module for each of the beneficiary Member States through comments and input from the participants so as to be able to conduct similar interactive workshops in each of the beneficiary Member States in future;

• To operationalise the UNODC Handbook for Effective Police Responses to Violence against Women (the UNODC Handbook) and its Training Curriculum on Effective Police Responses to Violence against Women (the Training Curriculum) in context of specific needs and requirements of the Southern African region; and

• To enable participants to use the UNODC Handbook and Training Curriculum as a framework when presenting future national training workshops.

Through a recent training needs assessment conducted in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, the general shortcomings identified included several critical aspects. These include: the lack of resources and structured use of specialised police units; the use of law enforcement officials in the capacity of investigators as well as mediators and counsellors in the absence of effective victim referral services; the lack of a coordinated and integrated approach between investigators, prosecutors and victim services; cultural beliefs and traditional approaches, particularly a strong patriarchal social structure; and the need for comprehensive training on effective police response to violence against women and children.