Human And Prompt
The women’s human rights movement has prompted investigation into another important area of human rights abuse: violence against women carried out by private actors that is tolerated or ignored by the state. As intractable as state-perpetrated violence against women is, women’s health and lives are equally endangered by abuse at the hands of husbands, employers, parents, or brothel owners. Domestic violence, for example, is a leading cause of female injury in almost every country in the world and is typically ignored by the state or only erratically punished, as the studies of Brazil, Russia, and South Africa in this report reveal. In Kuwait, employers assault Asian women domestic workers, driving hundreds of women to flee to their embassies each year. Yet only a handful of abusive employers are investigated or prosecuted. To fulfill their international obligations, states are required not only to ensure that women, as victims of private violence, obtain equal protection of the law, but also that the conditions that render women easy targets for attack—including sex discrimination in law and practice—are removed.
Women’s lack of social and economic security has compounded their vulnerability to violence and sex discrimination. We have found, for example, that numerous Burmese, Nepali, and Bangladeshi women and girls, seeking to escape poverty at home, accept fraudulent job or marriage offers that result in their being trafficked into forced prostitution. In South Africa, women’s lack of access to alternative housing is one reason why some of them hesitate to report domestic violence. At the same time, the lack of access to political power and to equal justice—through the right to organize, to express opinions freely, to participate in the political process, and to obtain redress for abuse—is a central obstacle to women seeking to improve their social and economic status within their societies. At the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, governments recognized that "advancing gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence against women, and ensuring women’s ability to control their own fertility, are cornerstones of population and development-related programs." Similarly, the stated goals of the FourthWorld Conference on Women in Beijing—peace, equality and development—suggest that protection of women’s human rights is inextricably connected to the improvement of women’s status more generally.
Silence about abuses against women hides the problems that destroy, and sometimes end, women’s lives. Governments excuse and fail to take action against soldiers and prison guards who rape, police officers who forcibly traffick women, immigration officials who assault, judges who exonerate wife-murderers, and husbands who batter. They accept and defend domestic laws that discriminate on their face or in practice. Until recently, local and international human rights organizations, the United Nations and regional human rights bodies have approached human rights advocacy by focusing on a narrow interpretation of politically motivated abuse, while often failing to respond to the repression of women even when they challenge existing legal, political or social systems. Also neglected by governments and international organizations have been the range of abuses that women suffer because many of these violations did not conform to standard ideas of what constitutes human rights abuse. Thus, "Nada," a Saudi woman who sought political asylum in Canada in 1992, initially was denied refuge because persecution for her feminist views on the status of women in her country and her activities flowing from those beliefs—attempting to study in the field of her choice, to refuse to wear the veil, and to travel alone—was not deemed political. Similarly, in a notorious case in 1988, a U.S. immigration judge denied political asylum to Catalina Mejia, a Salvadoran woman who was raped by soldiers. In the judge’s opinion, Mejia’s rape by a Salvadoran soldier, who accused her of being a guerrilla, was not an act of persecution but rather the excess of a soldier acting "only in his own self-interest.
The lack of documentation of violations of women’s rights reinforces governments’ silence; without concrete data, governments have been able to deny the fact of and their responsibility for gender-based abuse. Where human rights violations against women remain undocumented and unverified, governments pay no political or economic price for refusing to acknowledge the problem and their obligation to prevent and remedy abuse. One of the first challenges faced by the women’s human rights movement has been to transform women’s experiences of violence and discrimination into fact-basedproof of the scale and nature of such abuse and governments’ role in its perpetuation.
By building regional and international linkages that extend across cultural religious, ethnic, political, class, and geographic divides, women have developed effective political and legal strategies that strengthen their work domestically. Women’s ability to secure their rights domestically is always subject to their countries’ laws and willingness to enforce those laws. By calling upon the protections of the international human rights system, women are claiming rights that are not only morally desirable but also legally enforceable. Thus, for example, women’s rights groups combating rape in custody in Pakistan cast the abuse not only as a criminal act under domestic law, but also as torture, a gross violation of international human rights norms. This strategy helped them to secure legal reform in Pakistan and to influence the approach of the international human rights community to the problem of custodial rape in their country.
In the past, absent support from their domestic legal systems, human rights organizations, and intergovernmental agencies, women often chose not to seek redress rather than risk reprisal and social ostracism in cultures that often blame the victim. As the international human rights system becomes more responsive to gender-based human rights violations, women who have previously been silent about their experiences of abuse are speaking up. Their testimonies add to the evidence of the scale and prevalence of abuses against women that the international community simply cannot afford to ignore.
Recommendations to International Community
United Nations agencies, particularly the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Development Program, donor governments, and multilateral development banks should seek to ensure that population programs and policies include safeguards for the protection of basic civil and political rights
Recommendations to Governments:
Governments should not promote, condone, tolerate, or acquiesce in the use of violence, coercion and discrimination to control women’s reproductive and sexual decision-making and actions. Laws that criminalize violence, coercion and discrimination should also be applied to reproductive and sexual abuses. Such abuses include, but are not limited to: forced marriage; rape, marital rape and statutory rape; coerced virginity examinations; forced abortion, sterilization andpregnancy; and nonconsensual female genital mutilation or circumcision.
Governments should ensure that no medical procedure is performed without the patient’s full and informed consent.
Governments should review and amend laws that exempt husbands who rape their wives or that treat adultery differently when it is committed by men and women.
States should vigorously uphold the right of women to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, other forms of violent or coercive acts, or discriminatory practices aimed at controlling their reproductive or sexual status, particularly their status as virgins. Governments should not only refrain from committing such abuse, but should also take necessary steps to protect everyone within their territories against such abuse. Governments should adopt legislation, implement public awareness campaigns, and take other appropriate measures to this end.
Governments should articulate and implement human rights guidelines for national population programs. These guidelines should be widely distributed to family planning clinics and hospitals, and training should be provided to health care providers, with an emphasis on family planning officials.
Governments should interpret the rights to privacy and nondiscrimination to guarantee to adult women the right to decide freely and responsibly whether, with whom, when and why to engage in private sexual relations. The age of majority with regard to sexual relations should be determined by domestic law and should be the same for males and females.
Governments that have not yet done so should establish and enforce a minimum age of marriage under law as a critical step for eradicating child marriage and early child pregnancy. The legal minimum age should be nondiscriminatory, i.e., the same for males and females. Governments should also mandate the compulsory registration of all marriages.
Regardless of the domestic legal status of abortion, every government should protect health care providers who perform or assist in abortions and women who seek and receive this medical procedure from violence from opponents of abortion. Where abortion is legal, governments should further prohibit professional regulatory bodies, such as associations of doctors and nurses, from coercing or retaliating against members who provide a lawful service.
Governments should take necessary steps to uphold the right to freedom of expression. It is the duty of states to enact and enforce laws that guarantee the right of all individuals to seek, impart and receive information, including information related to all types of family planning services. Any derogation from this duty to protect public health and morals must be provided in law and necessary and proportionate to the legitimate interests pursued. At a minimum, governments should not interfere in private exchanges of information between doctors and patients.
Governments should uphold the right to liberty of movement, including the right to leave one’s country to seek family planning services. Restrictions on this right in the interest of public health or morals must be provided in law and necessary and proportionate to the legitimate aims pursued.
In countries where customary and/or religious law co-exist with statutory law, governments should ensure that each legal regime is in full compliance with international human rights norms, with particular attention to matters of family and personal law. Respect for traditions and customs should not be allowed to override states’ international obligations to uphold women’s basic rights, including, among others: freedom from physical or psychological attacks on their integrity and dignity as persons, nondiscrimination and equality before the law, equal protection of the law, freedom of expression and movement, and privacy.
International Human Rights Instruments – United Nations Charter
Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
Discrimination against women, denying or limiting as it does their equality of rights with men, is fundamentally unjust and constitutes an offence against human dignity. …..
…All appropriate measures shall be taken to ensure to women on equal terms with men, without any discrimination:
(a) The right to vote in all elections and be eligible for election to all publicly elected bodies;
(b) The right to vote in all public referenda;
(c) The right to hold public office and to exercise all public functions.
Such rights shall be guaranteed by legislation. …
Women shall have the same rights as men to acquire, change or retain their nationality. Marriage to an alien shall not automatically affect the nationality of the wife either by rendering her stateless or by forcing upon her the nationality of her husband…
All appropriate measures shall be taken to ensure to girls and women, married or unmarried, equal rights with men in education at all levels, and in particular: …
All appropriate measures shall be taken to ensure to women, married or unmarried, equal rights with men in the field of economic and social life, and in particular: …
Measures taken to protect women in certain types of work, for reasons inherent in their physical nature, shall not be regarded as discriminatory…
1. The principle of equality of rights of men and women demands implementation in all States in accordance with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
2. Governments, non-governmental organizations and individuals are urged, therefore, to do all in their power to promote the implementation of the principles contained in this Declaration.
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women
For the purposes of this Declaration, the term "violence against women" means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life…
Violence against women shall be understood to encompass, but not be limited to, the following:
(a) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family, including battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence and violence related to exploitation;
(b) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution;
(c) Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs. …
Women are entitled to the equal enjoyment and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. These rights include:
(a) The right to life
(b) The right to equality …
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 26.
(c) The right to liberty and security of person; 8/
(d) The right to equal protection under the law; 7/
(e) The right to be free from all forms of discrimination; 7/
(f) The right to the highest standard attainable of physical and mental health; 9/
(g) The right to just and favourable conditions of work; 10/
(h) The right not to be subjected to torture, or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment….
States should condemn violence against women and should not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination….
Convention on the Politicial Rights of Women
Women shall be entitled to vote in all elections on equal terms with men, without any discrimination. …
Women shall be eligible for election to all publicly elected bodies, established by national law, on equal terms with men, without any discrimination.
Women shall be entitled to hold public office and to exercise all public functions, established by national law, on equal terms with men, without any discrimination.
the request of any one of the parties to the dispute be referred to the International Court of Justice for decision, unless they agree to another mode of settlement. …
Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict
Attacks and bombings on the civilian population, inflicting incalculable suffering, especially on women and children, who are the most vulnerable members of the population, shall be prohibited, and such acts shall be condemned.
The use of chemical and bacteriological weapons in the course of military operations constitutes one of the most flagrant violations of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the principles of international humanitarian law and inflicts heavy losses on civilian populations, including defenceless women and children, and shall be severely condemned.
All States shall abide fully by their obligations under the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as well as other instruments of international law relative to respect for human rights in armed conflicts, which offer important guarantees for the protection of women and children.
All efforts shall be made by States involved in armed conflicts, military operations in foreign territories or military operations in territories still under colonial domination to spare women and children from the ravages of war. All the necessary steps shall be taken to ensure the prohibition of measures such as persecution, torture, punitive measures, degrading treatment and violence, particularly against that part of the civilian population that consists of women and children.
All forms of repression and cruel and inhuman treatment of women and children, including imprisonment, torture, shooting, mass arrests, collective punishment, destruction of dwellings and forcible eviction, committed by belligerents in the course of military operations or in occupied territories shall be considered criminal. …
Women in Ghana march in the World March of Women. ©AFP
In 2000 in Dhaka, an acid-scarred woman joins other women in Bangladesh in demanding an end to violence committed against women by male partners. ©AFP
A Dalit woman (a socially and economically marginalized caste in India) washes her hair with run-off water because her caste status disallows her from using the public water supply. ©AFP