Amnesty International

This report by Amnesty International discusses the implementation of the United Nations' 20-Year Programme of Action, adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo in 1994, with a focus on sexual and reproductive rights. The Programme of Action acknowledged for the first time that effective population and development policy is only possible through women's empowerment and equality. The report examines the challenges of nationally implementing the Programme of Action, highlighting the discrimination and

This open letter from Salil Shetty, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, is addressed to members of the Canadian House of Commons and the Senate. The letter calls on the government to implement a national public inquiry and to improve their proposed "action plan" to address the problem of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The letter insists that the government's response in the ten years since Amnesty Internationals major report, "Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada", was

This document provides general information on violence against women and States responsibilities to combat the problem. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) are identified as the three most prominent foundations for international womens human rights

This report discusses violence against women, describing this phenomenon as "the greatest human rights scandal of our times". Chapter 1 uses a human rights framework to provide an overview of violence against women and international campaigns to end it. Chapter 2 discusses the relationship between sexuality, violence, and human and sexual rights. The impact of cultural and community values on women's rights and violence against women is discussed in chapter 3. Chapter 4 looks at three factors that fuel and reinforce this violence.

This brief describes the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) as a comprehensive, integrated approach to violence. The brief provides a short history of the I-VAWA and its intended effects, including addressing violence against women and girls, alleviating poverty, reducing social tensions, supporting survivors, creating a 5-year strategy to fight violence against women, defining a mandate for State officials and USAID, enabling the US government to develop a better response to violence against women, and building the effectiveness of overseas NGOs.

This briefing focuses on the lack of protection for female domestic workers against gender-based violence, and discrimination faced in the fields of employment, health and education in Indonesia. Discriminatory employment legislation and a lack of state mechanisms to prevent and punish violence against women domestic workers results in many women being subjected to physical, psychological and sexual violence.

A report detailing progress made since Amnestys September 2011 report, This is what we demand. Justice!: Impunity for Sexual Violence against Women in Colombias Armed Conflict, regarding conflict-related sexual violence against women in Colombia over the past 45 years and the failure to protect women from such violence. Since the initial report, governments and state authorities have partly demonstrated a greater level of intent to deal with sexual violence, but there is still a significant gap in terms of implementing laws, resolutions, decrees, protocols and directives.

This report identifies the disproportionate number of women living in poverty, and examines the ways in which that poverty compounds their risk of exposure to violence. Women are often faced with multiple forms of discrimination, which contributes to their risk of experiencing violence. Armed conflict is also identified as a source of violence against women, as women are deliberately targeted with strategies of sexual violence used to break down communities.

Amnesty International prepared this report to follow up on one of the recommendations contained in CEDAW's 2008 Concluding Observations on Canada, namely that Canada should examine the reasons for the failure to investigate the cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women and to take the necessary steps to remedy the deficiencies in the system. The report contends that in the year since it received the recommendations, the Government of Canada has not consulted Indigenous women's organizations and has failed to effect any meaningful progress on the Committee's recommendations.

This report discusses whether violence committed against women in private and public settings constitutes torture. Noting governmental indifference to the maltreatment of women, the report demands for states to be held accountable for violence against women when they have failed to provide effective protection.