I N T E G R AT I N G A G E N D E R P E R S P E C T I V E I N T O H U M A N R I G H T S I N V E S T I G AT I O N S • G U I D A N C E A N D P R A C T I C E IV promote women’s equal representation in political and public life and their participation in constitutional and legislative reform,64 addressing specific barriers to women’s equal participation linked to restrictions on mobility, security and technical skills;65 • Services/protection measures provided to victims and survivors of SGBV. This may include: -- Establishing services for victims, such as counselling and rehabilitation, including in humanitarian settings; -- Establishing mechanisms to enhance access to justice, including legal assistance to file complaints and seek reparations; -- The adoption of gender-sensitive measures to avoid reprisals and stigmatization of victims and survivors of sexual violence and other forms of SGBV and ensure access to justice. This would include the establishment of special protection units and gender desks in police stations, etc.; -- The development and implementation of programmes to provide victims and survivors with economic and social empowerment and reintegration services; free from gender stereotypes, and the prosecution and commensurate punishment of perpetrators in accordance with international law; • Support for monitoring and awarenessraising mechanisms, including, for example, the allocation of adequate resources in order to address the impact of SGBV on women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health, including pregnancy and the transmission of STDs and HIV-related disease; • Women’s participation in peace negotiations, transitional justice mechanisms and reconstruction processes. This includes, for example, recommendations aimed at promoting adequate representation of women in relevant mechanisms to achieve reconciliation and accountability for human rights violations. It also entails equal access and participation by women and men during all stages of conflict prevention efforts, post-conflict transition and reconstruction processes. Example It has been recommended, for example, that [the Government] organize campaigns to raise awareness of human rights and violence against women and children and that the international community establish a mechanism for monitoring, analysing and reporting sexual violence related to conflict and deploy specialists to protect women and children, as prescribed by Security Council resolutions 1612 (2005) and 1960 (2010). (A/HRC/22/33, para. 70) • The importance of excluding perpetrators of sexual violence from amnesty programmes; • Reparations that are gender sensitive and transformative in impact. This means that they should strive to transform the context of inequality and oppression that enabled violations to occur;66 • Accountability measures, such as ensuring the independent and impartial investigation of violations of women’s and girls’ rights, “Ensure that national laws and policies comply with the State’s international human rights obligations and are non-discriminatory by, inter alia, permitting prosecution of marital rape in all circumstances and abolishing legal provisions criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual activity.” (A/HRC/32/CRP.1, para. 354 (f)) CEDAW Committee general recommendation No. 30 (2013), para. 72. 64 Ibid., para. 44. 65 It is particularly important that victims are consulted in order that their views on the specific nature of reparations are heard. See Guidance Note of the Secretary-General: Reparations for Conflict-related Sexual Violence, June 2014. See also OHCHR, Rule-of-Law Tools for Post-conflict States: Reparations Programmes (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.08.XIV.3). 66 54