Women's Human Rights Resources Database

This report discusses the due diligence standard and how it can be applied to a State's obligation to eliminate violence against women. It also identifies another fundamental principle connected to the application of the due diligence standard, that of non-discrimination, which implies that states are required to use the same level of commitment in relation to prevention, investigation, punishment and provision of remedies for violence against women as they do with regards to other forms of violence.

This report provides an overview of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women's work and summarizes the findings to date. In the report, the Special Rapporteur describes the most prevalent manifestations of violence against women and confirms that domestic violence remains widespread and affects women of all social strata, with vulnerable women at a higher risk. Despite legal prohibitions, practices in the family and the community that are harmful and degrading to women and girls, including sexual violence, sexual harassment, violence suffered as a result of a woman's sexual orientation or identity, and femicide, continue without monitoring and prohibition in some countries. The report also discusses the due diligence obligation that States have to prevent, protect, investigate, prosecute, punish and provide reparations to women victims of violence. Evolving practices, jurisprudence and remaining challenges are addressed. Finally, the report emphasizes that a holistic framework, based on States' obligations under the due diligence standard, should be adopted to address the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence against women.

In this report, the Human Rights Council (Council) proposes the adoption of a holistic framework to address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that contribute to violence against women. The report describes the forms of violence against women that prevail, addressing its consequences and providing three perspectives for understanding the causes (psychological/individual, feminist and societal). It then goes on to propose a holistic approach for conceptualizing and addressing violence against women based on the various interconnections between violence against women, its causes and consequences, and forms of discrimination. This approach considers human rights as universal, interdependent and indivisible. Situating violence against women on a continuum, it acknowledges the structural aspects and factors of discrimination and analyzes the social and/or economic hierarchies that exist between women and men and also among women. The report identifies critical issues to consider when adopting this holistic approach, including the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to education and to participate in cultural rights, civil and political rights, and finally womens right to self-determination.