Mongolian Women’s Fund (MONES)

Mission:

The mission of the Mongolian Women’s Fund (MONES) is to raise funds in order to financially support women’s initiatives for the advancement of Mongolian women. MONES believes that contributing to the advancement and progress of women will have a lasting and positive effect on the whole of society. MONES is the first national fund, mobilizing resources and providing financial and organizational support to women at the grassroots level. MONES contributes to the development of a humane, democratic and civil society with women participating at all levels including the political, economic, social and cultural spheres. MONES’ mission is to effectively foster feminist movement-building in Mongolia by mobilizing funds, resources, knowledge and capacities.

MONES NEWS:

Impact:

Established in the year 2000, MONES has had a critical role in helping support and strengthen Mongolian civil society groups focused on women’s issues and gender equality.

In one of their most significant victories, MONES helped to get a Gender Equality Law adopted by the Mongolian Parliament on February 14, 2011.  MONES and the Coalition Against Sexual Harassment fought for two decades to pass the law, the aim of which is to ensure the equal participation of women and men in all political, legal, economic, cultural, and social spheres. The law prohibits any forms of discrimination in these spheres and in family relations. The law states that gender based violence and sexual harassment are forms of gender based discrimination.  Furthermore, the law explicitly states that employers must take preventive measures against all forms of sexual harassment (verbal, behavioral and physical) in the workplace and will create zero-tolerance attitudes toward sexual harassment in the workplace.

In addition, the campaign made sure that a provision on sexual harassment in the workplace was included in the Criminal Code and has trained hundreds of trainers in multiple provinces. Over time, the campaign has engaged in a massive public awareness raising and education campaign that includes billboards, brochures, TV interviews, radio programs, and newspaper articles.

In another major legal victory, MONES pushed for a revised version of the country’s Labor Law which was eventually approved on June 24, 2021. Article 7, which prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace (SHW), was approved without any revisions by the Mongolian Parliament. The law, which came into effect on January 1, 2022, includes detailed provisions related to SHW, such as broader definitions for job, occupation, and labor relations and explicit formulation of types and forms of harassment and violence.  

MONES and the Coalition they help steer, have long worked to reach diverse audiences with their messages. As an example, the Coalition produced two videos about sexual harassment in the workplace viewable on their Facebook page with the titles A.M.B Creative Studio. The videos are in Mongolian but nevertheless quite comprehensible.

An additional example of growth, MONES’ success with local resource mobilization is profiled as one of 10 case studies in a report published by Prospera (formerly INWF), Mama Cash, and HRFN (formerly IHRFG): “Collective Change: The Value of Mobilizing Local Resources for Women’s Rights in the Global South and East.”  The report can be found on Prospera’s website in their Resource Center and is featured in Alliance magazine.

Channel Grants:

2023: Channel made a direct general operating grant to the Mongolian Women’s Fund (MONES) to support their work in feminist movement building, ending workplace sexual harassment and supporting disability rights in Mongolia.

2022: Channel made a general operating grant to the Mongolian Women’s Fund (MONES) (via the fiscal sponsorship of the Global Fund for Women (GFW)) to support their mission to “effectively foster feminist movement building in Mongolia by mobilizing funds, resources, knowledge and capacities from domestic and international sources and providing financial and technical support to Mongolian organization and groups that promote the rights of women, girls, trans and intersex people.”

2021: General operating grant to MONES (via the fiscal sponsorship of the GFW) to support their work fostering feminist movement building in Mongolia through grantmaking, convening, and training. 

2020: General operating support grant to MONES (via the fiscal sponsorship of GFW) for their work making grants, convening, and training women’s groups throughout Mongolia.

2007, 2009, 2011–2015, 2017: Several grants (via the fiscal sponsorship of GFW) to support MONES’ coordination of the Coalition Against Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, 20 Mongolian NGOs leading an ongoing advocacy campaign to end sexual harassment in the workplace. The campaign raises awareness about sexual harassment in the workplace via diverse and creative means which have included specific outreach to rural and low-literacy populations and advocates for legislation to outlaw it. They also focus on the urgent need to create legal provisions to protect victims and witnesses, to enhance the relevant legal framework, and to improve the collaboration of organizations for human rights defenders.

The campaign’s specific goals have included advocacy for the approval of a new Labor Law with a strong Article on sexual harassment in the workplace (2015); advocacy on implementing the country’s new Labor Law (2014); revising the Labor Law (2013); developing enforcement mechanisms and establishing better services for victim protection and raising public awareness through capacity building of NGOs that work on the elimination of sexual harassment (2012); and ensuring the implementation and enforcement of the newly adopted Gender Equality Law.