Diversion Research - Detention project

UN Women is the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, dedicated to advancing gender equality and women’s human rights globally. Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and focus on mobilizing efforts towards the effective implementation of UN resolution 1325 (2000), 2122 (2013) and related resolutions which commit the international community to ensure women’s participation and leadership in all aspects of conflict resolution and peace building related activities.

UN Women established its presence in Yemen in 2014 working in close collaboration with the UN system providing coordination and programme support to strengthen the UN response to addressing national priorities for gender equality and women’s empowerment, in line with UN Women’s strategic vision. UN Women in Yemen has entered into a partnership with UN entities in the country to support women’s and Youth engagement in Yemen’s current transition focusing on supporting Youth and women’s effective engagement in Yemen’s peace processes and in political participation. UN Women also focuses on supporting women’s effective engagement in the overall humanitarian response with partners and beneficiaries.

As part of the UN Women youth support activities under organizational standards and polices with support from the Peace building fund, UN Women Yemen, in partnership with UNDP and UNICEF, is undertaking the project “Responding to Humanitarian Needs and Supporting Resilience in Places of Detention” which is focusing on women’s resilience in detentions and prisons and related facilities by improving, developing and supporting basic conditions, physical and psychosocial conditions, rehabilitation of facilities, education and vocational training and reintegration.

This project aims at creating a pilot, to respond to protection needs inside prisons and other places of detentions with a strong emphasis on building knowledge and practices in accordance with human rights principles and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).  At the same time, the project aims to initiate support in corrections as a pilot phase in order to inform the subsequent programming in the coming years.

The overall goal/impact of this project is that women and juvenile detainees to benefit from case management to facilitate reintegration support and accessing legal and social services. The overall outcome of the project is that appropriate cases are diverted towards alternatives to incarceration, and the resilience of detainees is strengthened by improving basic conditions in places of detention, and strengthening reintegration efforts, with particular attention to the special needs of women.

1. Description of Required Services

As the project focuses on immediate needs, it equally seeks to support longer-term policy initiatives which would help to systemically address prison overcrowding and poor conditions. Given the current conflict situation, there may be limited opportunities to progress these policy reforms at present. However, potential future linkages could include diversion and restorative justice, alternative sentencing, child and women friendly modalities of service delivery, improved intake and classification of detainees etc.

In line with the project results framework, UN Women Yemen Programme welcomes proposals for interested Implementing Partner (local NGOs or consultancy companies) to conduct and implement activities under the project outcome targeting the output of assessing and supporting appropriate options and alternatives to incarceration are available to women and children in eight governorates of Sana’a, Aden, Taiz, Ibb, Dhamar, Hodeidah, Marib and Mukalla by conducting a research on customary justice and diversion.

UN Women requires through this service a provision of quality information, analysis and recommendations on informal justice systems and actors operating on justice for women at local level to strengthening measures, reintegration mechanisms, which will enhance social cohesion and contribute to long-term peacebuilding results and security and justice sector's reform. In addition, the research results will help the project team and its partners in identifying diversion measures and mechanisms that enable women who are coming into contact with the law to have access to alternatives and custodial sentences, provide women with incarceration alternative, support pre-trial detainees, and provide women in detention with legal aid.

1. Methodology

The main purpose of this service/ research is to carry out an analytic assessment of promising/good

practices as well as enablers and barriers for using diversion and other alternative measures for detainees, women offenders and children/juvenile in line with human rights principles and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). This is to support relevant national and local authorities, justice professionals, social welfare professionals, informal justice providers, practitioners, community-based organizations (CBOs), civil society organization (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in their efforts to apply diversion and other alternative measures that reduce the pressure on overcrowding and shortage of humanitarian services in prisons under the time of conflict and to harmonize their practices with international justice standards justice standards. The implementing partner will work in close collaboration with UNDP and UNICEF and will focus mainly on women.

The final output should provide a research report that describes the continuum of promising/good practices in the eight governorates (Sana’a, Aden, Taiz, Ibb, Dhamar, Hodeidah, Marib and Mukalla) that may function as a guide for implementing, replicating and scaling-up diversion, alternatives to pre-trial and post-trial detention and restorative justice approaches. In addition, the research should provide an assessment of existing promising/good practices, enablers and barriers for using diversion and other alternative measures carried out in all eight governorates. The selected implementing partner will:  

• Develop all protocols related to the study and areas of focus based on the research tools used for the field work.
• Conduct a desk review of available documents, studies, and research on the study topic.
• Collect questionnaire data in 3-5 of the governorates targeted in cooperation with UN Women project partners.
• Conduct Focus Group Discussions in 8 governorates with the justice providers and stakeholders.
• Conduct KIIs with justice officials and experts in the 8 governorates. 
• Collect and analyze the data collected.
• Develop the research report and submit it to UN Women.

The desk review of relevant available documents, studies, and research, should methodologically serve the main purpose to obtain an overall picture of existing national legislation and practices with regard to diversion and other alternative measures for detainees, children and women in conflict with the law in Yemen, as well as potential enablers and barriers for using these measures in line with international standards on justice. The desk review should also inform the other methodological steps/ phases of the research (the questionnaire, interviews and in-governorate visits). Moreover, relevant information that cannot be collected through the desk review should be compiled through the other methods such as in-governorate visits and interviews.

The data collection methods of the information on diversion and other alternative measures should be designed based on combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods (desk review of relevant documents, questionnaire, in-governorate KIIs and FGDs) and should be presented, discussed and validated with UN Women and its project partners.

The assessment process should include phases of preparing the methodology and templates for the desk review, questionnaire and interviews. Then, Sampling of the target governorates, field visits and collecting detailed information about promising/good practices, including the running costs for those practices. Followed by collecting data on diversion and other alternative measures through the desk review, questionnaire and interviews. Finally, conducting meetings with UN Women and its partners to exchange and validate the research's findings.

The structured questionnaire should obtain insight into the various components of existing practices of diversion and other alternative measures for detainees with a focus on women. Particularly whether national legislation regulates alternative measures, whether existing practices of alternative measures

comply with international standards and which factors enable or obstruct the use of diversion and

other alternative measures. The questionnaire should also inform the methodological steps of the assessment of the interviews and in-governorate visits. Relevant information that could not be collected through the questionnaires, or if there is unclear information, should be compiled and verified through the interviews.

The Semi-structured interviews should obtain an overview of the women’s justice context of the targeted governorates and a detailed picture of the existing promising/good practices of informal justice, diversion, alternatives to pre-trial detention, alternatives to post-trial detention and restorative justice approaches, including whether the existing practices comply with international standards. Through the interviews the discrepancies between desk-review findings and questionnaire findings should be checked.

The in-governorate visits should obtain insight into the various components of identified promising/good practices of diversion and other alternative measures, such as human resources, results and factors for success, challenges and solutions, potentials for replication and scaling up, running costs, etc.

Case studies of alternative measures for women detainees could be collected as well from CSOs (such as Yemeni Women’s Union) or other government or semi-government entities who may provide a specific case study of their promising/good practices of alternative measures for pre- and post trail, especially for the role of women mediators, reintegration, legal aid, humanitarian and psychological aid, awareness raising, empowerment, etc.

The Implementing Partner will have to explain how the chosen methodology and approach will ensure quality assessment and analysis of diversion alternative measures for pre- and post train women, children and detainees' custody, impressment, legal aid, integration and other social services.