The document discusses violence against women and girls from a human rights perspective. It defines key terms related to gender, gender identity, and violence against women. It discusses how violence against women manifests in different forms, from domestic violence to harmful practices. It outlines common factors like harmful gender stereotypes and economic inequality. It discusses the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women which recognizes violence against women as a form of discrimination and human rights violation.

1. Module 10
Violence against Women and Girls

2. Discussion question
Eradicating violence against women has been a global priority since 1992.
How does this violence manifest in practice?
What are the causes?

3. Key Terms
Gender
The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW Committee), and refers to “socially constructed identities, attributes and roles for
women and men and the cultural meaning imposed by society on to biological differences,
which are constantly reflected within the justice system and its institutions” (CEDAW
Committee, General Recommendation 33, para. 7).
‘Gender’ is often seen as a ‘woman’s issue’ – as though men don’t have a gender identity.
On the contrary, gender is a social construction that underlies the organization of all.

4. Key Terms
Binary Gender Expectations
Despite non-binary diversity of gender and gender-identity, gender is often reduced to the
social attributes and opportunities associated with being female and male and to the
relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as to the relations
between women and those between men. The binary paradigm is socially constructed
and, perpetuates harmful and reductionist stereotypes about the attributes expected of
women and men. In most societies, there are differences and inequalities between women
and men in responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken, access to and control over
resources, as well as decision-making opportunities.

5. What is the difference between “sex” and “gender”?
The distinction between sex and gender differentiates a person's biological
sex (the anatomy of an individual's reproductive system and secondary
sexual characteristics) from that person's gender which can refer to either
social roles based on the sex of the person (gender role) or personal
identification of one's own gender based on an internal awareness (gender
identity).

6. Key Terms
Gender Identity
Each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may
or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of
the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or
function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender,
including dress, speech and mannerisms. The concept of Gender identity includes
being transgender and, for individuals with bodily diversity who choose to identify
as intersex, gender identity also encompasses intersex.

7. Key Terms
“Honour” Crime (crimes in the name of so-called “Honour”)
Acts of violence that are disproportionately, though not exclusively, committed against girls
and women, because family members consider that certain suspected, perceived or actual
behaviour will bring dishonour to the family or community.
Honour crimes are acts of violence against women and girls, where the perpetrators
invoke terms such as “honour”, “custom” or “tradition” as a justification or excuse for their
actions. In some cases, there is an explicit defence to crimes of violence, or a perpetrator
benefits from a reduced sentence if he or she can persuade the court that they committed
the crime for reasons of ‘honour’.
The term ‘so-called “honour”’ is sometimes used to emphasize that it is a misuse of the
term “honour” to use the concept as an excuse for violence.

8. Key Terms
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)
Acts of physical, mental, social or economic abuse (including sexual violence) that is
attempted or threatened, with some type of force (such us violence, threats, coercion,
manipulation, deception, cultural expectations, weapons or economic circumstances) and
is directed against a person because of his or her sex, gender, or the sex/gender roles and
expectations in a society or culture. A person facing sexual and gender-based violence
has no choice to refuse or pursue other options without severe social, physical, or
psychological consequences. Forms of SGBV include sexual violence, sexual abuse,
sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, early marriage or forced marriage, gender
discrimination, denial (such as education, food, freedom) and female genital mutilation
(FGM).

9. Key Terms
Economic Violence (or Financial Abuse)
Acts of control and monitoring of the behaviour of an individual in terms of
the use and distribution of money, and the constant threat of denying
economic resources. In some countries this is called economic abuse or
financial abuse.

10. Key Terms
Hate Crime
The term “hate crime” can be used to describe a range of criminal
behaviours where the perpetrator is motivated by hostility or
demonstrates hostility towards the victim's disability, race, religion,
sexual orientation or gender identity. A hate crime can include verbal
abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, bullying, assault, or homicide,
as well as damage to property.

11. Key Terms
Gender Related Killing of Women and Girls
Gender-related killing of women and girls, which in some countries is criminalized in
national legislation as “femicide” or “feminicide”, is the killing of women and girls on
account of their gender, encompassing intimate partner homicide, the targeted killing of
women in the context of armed conflict, the killing of women in the context of criminal
activity, including: gangs; organized crime; and the trafficking in women and girls. Gender-
related killing of women and girls also encompasses the so-called honour killing of women
and girls.

12. Key Terms
Survivor/Victim
Survivor: A term that is sometimes used (by choice) as a personal descriptor by woman
or girl who has been subjected to gender-based violence, who is still alive.
Victim: A person who has suffered harm (including physical, mental or emotional harm or
economic loss) directly caused by a criminal offence – regardless of whether an offender
is identified, apprehended, prosecuted or convicted, and regardless of the familial
relationship between them. Some victims choose to refer to themselves as survivors. This
is a matter of personal choice.

13. Topic One
Ending Violence Against Women
Violence against women and girls is a global problem, affecting countries in all regions of
the world (World Health Organization, 2013).
While there is a diversity of different kinds of violence, including: violence inflicted by the
State; violence perpetrated in communities and families such as killings, rape, and sexual
violence; other physical violence such as female genital mutilation (FGM); and
psychological violence such as stalking and trafficking; there are several common factors.

14. Factors common to various forms of violence against women and girls
• Individuals – mainly men and boys, but also sometimes also women and girls, choose
to inflict violence against women and girls.
• Attitudes and stereotypes relating to masculinity and femininity support the use of
violence against women and girls.
• Laws and customs (particularly normative customs relating to culture and religion)
reflect these attitudes and provide a framework in which violence against women is not
sanctioned as it should be.
• Economic inequality is both a facet of gender-based violence against women and
girls (in cases of economic abuse, dowry abuse, etc) and a key means of preventing
women and girls from accessing justice.

15. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women
For the purposes of the present Convention, the term "discrimination against women" shall
mean any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the
effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by
women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of
human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or
any other field.
Article 1

16. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women
States Parties condemn discrimination against women in all its forms, agree to pursue by
all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against
women and, to this end, undertake:
(e) To take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women by any
person, organization or enterprise.
(f) To take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish existing
laws, regulations, customs and practices which constitute discrimination against women.
Article 2

17. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of
Discrimination against Women
States Parties shall take in all fields, in particular in the political, social, economic and
cultural fields, all appropriate measures, including legislation, to ensure the full
development and advancement of women , for the purpose of guaranteeing them the
exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on a basis of equality
with men.
Article 3

18. Topic Two
Human Rights Approaches to Violence Against Women
To recognize violence against women as a form of discrimination is to recognise it as a
violation of women’s human rights.
In its ground-breaking General Recommendation 19, the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women identified violence against women as “a form of
discrimination that seriously inhibits women's ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a
basis of equality with men” (CEDAW Committee, General Recommendation 19, para. 1).

19. In describing violence against women as a form of discrimination under
Article 1 of the Convention on All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women (GA Resolution 34/180), the CEDAW Committee made an
important point about direct and indirect discrimination: it includes acts
and situations which are created with the purpose of discriminating
against women – that is, intentional discrimination which is done with the
aim of discrimination – and acts and situations which have the effect of
discriminating against women.
Direct and indirect discrimination

20. When stripped of privatization, sexism and sentimentalism, gender-
based violence – which is brutal, systemic and structural – must be
seen as no less grave than other forms of inhumane and subordinating
violence, the prohibition of which has been recognized as jus cogens
[a fundamental rule of international law that binds all States,
irrespective of treaty obligations]”
Rhonda Copelon, Understanding Domestic Violence as Torture 1990
Violence against women as a breach of human
rights

21. Watch:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
“We should all be feminists” 12 April 2013, Tedtalk [29:30
minutes].

22. Topic 3
Who has rights in this situation?
Prosecuting domestic violence & sexual violence
- a human rights approach
This topic is divided into two parts:
A) A comprehensive approach to ending domestic violence
B) Prosecuting the crimes of rape and sexual violence – a human rights approach

23. Topic 3(A)
A comprehensive approach to domestic violence
As with child marriage, the persistence and social acceptance of domestic
violence is rooted in the idea that women’s and girls’ priorities and role in life
should be their intimate relationships with men, and that these relationships
should be sustained whatever the cost to the woman, and no matter how abusive
the man is.

24. Given that assaults and killings tend to
be crimes in all domestic legal systems,
why has domestic violence been so
little prosecuted, and remains so
prevalent?
In-Class Exercise
Students to discuss in pairs, followed by plenary discussion

25. Topic 3(B):
Prosecuting the crimes of rape & sexual violence
- a human rights approach
Akayesu case, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, 1998, defined rape as:
“any act of a sexual nature which is committed on a person
under circumstances which are coercive.”
Coercive circumstances need not be evidenced by a show of physical force. Threats,
intimidation, extortion and other forms of duress which prey on fear or desperation may
constitute coercion, and coercion may be inherent in certain circumstances, such as
armed conflict or the military presence of Interahamwe [armed militia men] among
[women displaced by conflict].”

26. Rape of a detainee by an official of the State must be considered to be an
especially grave an abhorrent form of ill-treatment given the ease with which
the offender can exploit the vulnerability and weakened resistance of his
victim. Furthermore, rape leaves deep psychological scars on the victim
which do not respond to the passage of time as quickly as other forms of
physical and mental violence. The applicant also experienced the acute
physical pain of forced penetration, which must have left her feeling debased
and violated both physically and emotionally.
The Court is satisfied that the accumulation of acts of physical and mental
violence inflicted on the applicant and the especially cruel act of rape to
which she was subjected amounted to torture in breach of Article 3 of the
Convention.
Aydin v Turkey case, European Court of Human Rights, 25 September 1997, paragraphs
Case Analysis
Rape as an act of Torture

27. “Given the fact that the violence suffered by Maria da Penha is part of
a general pattern of negligence and lack of effective action by the
State in prosecuting and convicting aggressors… this case involves
not only failure to respect to prosecute and convict, but also the
obligation to prevent these degrading practices. That general and
discriminatory judicial ineffectiveness also creates a climate that is
conducive to domestic violence, since society sees no evidence of
willingness by the State, as the representative of society, to take
effective action to sanction such acts.”
Maria do Penha Maia Fernandes v Brazil, 16 April 2001.
Case Analysis
The obligation to prevent, criminalise, and prosecute gender-based
violence

28. “Women’s human rights to life and to physical and mental integrity
cannot be superseded by other rights, including the right to property
and the right to privacy.”
A.T. v Hungary, CEDAW Committee, 2005.
.
Case Analysis
Clarity, in cases of competing rights

29. Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating
violence against women and domestic violence, 2011.
“Consent must be given voluntarily as the result of
the person’s free will assessed in the context of the
surrounding circumstances.” (Article 36(2))

30. Council of Europe Convention on preventing and
combating violence against women and domestic violence,
2011
Parties shall take the necessary legislative or other measures to
ensure that the following intentional conducts are criminalised:
a) engaging in non-consensual vaginal, anal or oral penetration of a
sexual nature of the body of another person with any bodily part
or object;
b) engaging in other non-consensual acts of a sexual nature with a
person;
c) causing another person to engage in non-consensual acts of a
sexual nature with a third person (Article 36)

31. The International Criminal Court’s Elements of Crimes:
“The invasion [of the victim’s body] was committed by force, or by threat of
force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention,
psychological oppression or abuse of power, against such person or another
person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment, or the invasion was
committed against a person incapable of giving genuine consent.
[A footnote here reads: ‘It is understood that a person may be incapable of
giving genuine consent if affected by natural, induced or age-related
incapacity.’]15”

32. Topic 5
What about the men? Transforming stereotypes & acting
in solidarity to end discrimination
and violence for everyone

33. “We need more men who have the courage and
the strength to start standing up … and standing
with women and not against them and pretending
that somehow this is a battle between the sexes
and other kinds of nonsense. We live in the world
together.”
Jackson Katz

34. Watch:
“Men need to join the fight to end violence against women.”
Eve Ensler, 15 February 2018, Time Magazine [3:38 minutes].

35. Topic 6
Local, regional and global solutions: State obligations to
adopt a comprehensive approach to violence against
women and gender discrimination

36. INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION, PUNISHMENT AND
ERADICATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN "CONVENTION OF BELEM
DO PARA"
Every woman has the right to be free from violence in both the public and private
spheres. (Article 3)
Every woman is entitled to the free and full exercise of her civil, political, economic,
social and cultural rights, and may rely on the full protection of those rights as
embodied in regional and international instruments on human rights. The States
Parties recognize that violence against women prevents and nullifies the exercise of
these rights. (Article 5)
The right of every woman to be free from violence includes, among others:
a. The right of women to be free from all forms of discrimination; and
b. The right of women to be valued and educated free of stereotyped patterns of
behavior and social and cultural practices based on concepts of inferiority or

37. PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND
PEOPLES' RIGHTS ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA
Article 3 - Right to Dignity
Every woman shall have the right to dignity inherent in a human being
and to the recognition and protection of her human and legal rights;
Every woman shall have the right to respect as a person and to the
free development of her personality;
States Parties shall adopt and implement appropriate measures to
prohibit any exploitation or degradation of women;
States Parties shall adopt and implement appropriate measures to
ensure the protection of every woman’s right to respect for her dignity
and protection of women from all forms of violence, particularly sexual
and verbal violence.

38. ISTANBUL CONVENTION The purposes of this Convention are to:
a) protect women against all forms of violence, and prevent,
prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic
violence;
b) contribute to the elimination of all forms of discrimination against
women and promote substantive equality between women and men,
including by empowering women;
c) design a comprehensive framework, policies and measures for
the protection of and assistance to all victims of violence against
women and domestic violence;
d) promote international co-operation with a view to eliminating
violence against women and domestic violence;
e) provide support and assistance to organisations and law
enforcement agencies to effectively co-operate in order to adopt an
integrated approach to eliminating violence against women and
domestic violence.

39. @DohaDeclaration
unodc.org/dohadeclaration
More information
unodc.org/e4J
e4j@unodc.org