Women's Human Rights Resources Database

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.

This report focuses on violence against female migrant workers. It describes the international legal framework, and measures taken by States and within the United Nations system to implement the UN General Assembly resolution requiring governments to address violence against migrant women workers. The report finds that the development of laws and policy has focused on gender equality, violence against women and worker's rights as opposed to targeting female migrant workers. It offers recommendations to ameliorate this approach, encouraging States to ensure their legislation effectively protects the human rights and comprehensively addresses violence against both documented and undocumented migrant workers The report also calls for mechanisms to be put in place to assess the effectiveness of relevant legislation.

In this report, the UN Human Rights Committee (the Committee) makes observations noting a continued prevalence of violence against women and a lack of shelters available to women experiencing violence in the Russian Federation. The Committee expresses concern with regard to allegations of the "honour killings" of eight women in Chechnya. It recommends that the Russian Federation promptly investigate and prosecute complaints relating to violence against women, allocate sufficient funding to victim assistance and support, and institute mandatory training for police to sensitize them to crimes involving violence against women.

This resolution by the Human Rights Council (the HRC) emphasizes the importance of accelerating efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls (VAW), its causes and consequences. The resolution focuses on three major areas: (1) States are called upon to change domestic legislation to increase protection of female victims of violence and provide increased remedies to these victims; (2) States are also called upon to provide greater support to NGOs and initiatives focused on the elimination of VAW; and (3) States and UN bodies are called upon to work together in collecting and providing information on VAW to help develop effective indicators of the same.

This report provides recommendations for reparations to women who have been subjected to violence. It addresses the fact that most humanitarian and international human rights treaties provide for the right to a remedy and discusses the conceptual challenges facing remedy provision. The report examines significant substantive and procedural trends to reverse this, both in the discussion and in the practice of reparations. The Special Rapporteur calls upon States to determine how to effectively compensate victims for harms suffered and provides suggestions for remedies. She identifies some developments in the national and international sphere with regard to reparations, including trust funds and holding States responsible for providing compensation to victims in cases where States have not met their due diligence obligations. She also provides a critical analysis of two international cases where States failed to meet this obligation, and where reparations were rewarded: Cotton Field v Mexico and Opuz v Turkey.

This addendum to the Special Rapporteur's annual report contains summaries of communications between governments of various countries on individual cases and general situations of concern to her mandate, addressing a wide array of issues that reflect a pattern of inequality and discrimination related to violence against women, its causes and consequences. The report notes that in a substantial number of cases, violations were allegedly committed by state agents in contravention of Article 4(b) of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. It also notes that States have a duty to take positive action and exercise due diligence to prevent and protect women from violence, to prosecute and appropriately sanction perpetrators of violence, and to ensure that victims of violence receive compensation. The Special Rapporteur observes an ongoing trend to subject women's rights defenders to violence, including arbitrary detention and threats of violence, with many of the threats perpetrated by state agents. She notes that by committing to the CEDAW, member States have committed to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of their respective country and to ensure them the right to participate in non-governmental organizations and associations concerned with the public and political life of the country (Article 7 of the Convention).

This report focuses on the intersection of culture and VAW. It provides a discussion of the development of international legal norms and standards that has lead to the primacy of protection of women against discrimination and violence over the need to preserve cultural practices. The Special Rapporteur notes that the universal obligation to respect human rights as established under the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action also extends to women's human rights. Under General Recommendation No. 19 of CEDAW violence against women constitutes a form of gender discrimination that impairs or nullifies women's enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and traditional, religious or cultural practices cannot be used to justify violence and discrimination against women. The report notes that States violate their international obligations whenever they fail to condemn any specific form of violence against women, or fail to pursue, by all appropriate means and without delay, a policy to eliminate such violence, regardless of whether the violence is grounded in traditional, religious or cultural practice. It identifies their obligations, which include adopting all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of men and women, and to eliminate prejudices and practices based on inequality.

This report, submitted to the Human Rights Council, proposes indicators to measure VAW and State response towards ending such violence. In addition to adherence to the due diligence standard to prevent VAW, States are asked to support research, collect data and compile statistics regarding VAW and encourage research on its causes and consequences. States are also urged to establish and use VAW indicators so that interventions designed to combat violence are based on accurate data. The report identifies some key attributes of good indicators: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time- framed. This report proposes indicators for measuring grave VAW, femicide and tolerance. Indicators for measuring state-responses can include institutional indicators, process indicators and tracking promising practices. This report offers ways in which these indicators can be implemented and concludes by reiterating the necessity of an evidence- based approach to eliminate VAW.

This note aims to provide policy and operational guidance for United Nations engagement in the area of reparations for victims of conflict-related sexual violence. Reparations are reflective of victims’ internationally-enshrined right to an effective remedy. This includes activities to advocate for, and/or support the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of, reparation programmes and initiatives directed at victims of conflict-related sexual violence. The note sets out eight guiding principles to encourage operational engagement. These include the principles that judicial and/or administrative reparations should be available to victims of conflict-related sexual violence, and that these victims should be meaningfully consulted in the creation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of reparations. The note recognizes the need for reparations that are specifically tailored to the consequences, sensitivity and stigmas attached to the harms of sexual violence, as well as the needs of its survivors.

This briefing paper was prepared for the Symposium on Sexual Violence in Conflict and Beyond that took place in Brussels, Belgium in June 2006. Part I discusses the nature and scope of sexual violence against women and children in situations of armed conflict. Part II describes international actions that have been taken to combat gender-based violence against women. Here, the authors advocate a multi-sectoral approach, which "calls for holistic inter-organizational and inter-agency efforts, across the health, social services, legal and security sectors". Part III assesses progress in this area, arguing that states and the international community as a whole have failed to prioritize violence against women as a major health and human rights issue. The report concludes by highlighting the importance of ending impunity for perpetrators of violence. [Descriptors: Armed Conflict, Violence Against Women, International]

UNSCR 1820 condemns sexual violence as an instrument of conflict and commits the Security Council to implementing the steps necessary to decisively end this practice and punish its perpetrators. The resolution notes that rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and constitutive acts with respect to genocide. In response to this, the resolution stresses the need for the exclusion of sexual violence crimes from amnesty provisions in the context of conflict resolution process, and mandates a zero tolerance policy for sexual violence crimes. The resolution emphasizes the necessity of womens contribution to peacebuilding, and to their full participation and involvement in decision-making with regard to security, conflict-prevention and resolution.

The Cantu decision analyzes rape as torture and attempts to recognize the victims' multidimensional identities as Indigenous females living in poverty. In Cantu, the Court emphasizes the victim's status as a child and the role that that status plays in determining the scope of the States obligations. This factor was considered in conjunction with the victim's status as an Indigenous woman, which also led the Court to conclude that the State was to be held to a higher standard of conduct. Cantu reaffirmed the test used in Ortega to determine whether rape constitutes torture under the Inter- American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture. It also confirms one of the key findings in Ortega that military involvement in rape investigations is always inappropriate.