Newsletter
1/2012
WAVE & NETWORK NEWS
WAVE will be
present to lobby for women
services during the United Nations Commission on the
status of Women (CSW) 2012
The fifty-sixth session of the
Commission on the Status of Women
will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York
from Monday, 27
February to Friday, 9 March 2012.
European countries are failing
to provide women survivors of
violence and their children with adequate services that
address their specific
needs, as this is shown by the serious lack of women’s
shelters
discovered through research for the WAVE 2010 Country
Report. Additionally, the
current financial crisis has resulted in threats and
closings of women’s
shelters all over Europe. This results not only in the
decline of the numbers
of shelters, but also undermines the minimum requirements
and standards that
women’s support services should be able to provide.
The panel will
illustrate the current situation of women’s shelters and
support services
in Europe and will describe strategies of women’s NGOs in
their struggle
to continuously and sustainably provide vital services for
women and children.
The following
presentations and topics will take place:
-Women’s
Shelters in Europe are lacking effective political and
financial support
– presented by Julia Girardi (WAVE Network Austria)
- Support for
Survivors of Domestic Violence in UK - presented by Kath
Rees and Elvira
Wilson (The Haven Wolverhampton, UK )
- Sustaining Women
Support Services in Rural Areas in the Ukraine - presented
by Olena Suslova
(Women’s Information Consultative Center, Ukraine)
- Optional: The
Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating
violence against women
and domestic violence – presented by Johanna Nelles (Council
of Europe)
2nd World
Conference on Women’s Shelters
The 2nd World
Conference of Women’s Shelters
will take place 27th February – 1st
March 2012 in
Washington, DC. The conference will bring together
grassroots activists and
advocates working on ending violence against women. At this
conference,
delegates will receive tangible tools and knowledge from
other activists, as
well as collaborate with women from all over the world.
Rosa Logar, the founding member
of the European Network WAVE
(Women against Violence Europe 1994), will present the topic
‘Domestic
Abuse Intervention Program Vienna’
The response to gender
based violence in Eastern Europe and
Central Asia: A programmatic package to build the health
system response to
gender based violence
WAVE together with UNFPA Eastern
Europe and Central Asia
produced a programmatic package to build the health system
response to gender
based violence. The website is now online: www.
respondgbveeca.org
Gender based violence affecting
women and girls is one of the
most widespread violations of human rights. Health services
offer an effective
way to respond to gender based violence, yet a systematic
approach is still
often missing. The website provides tools for professionals
working in the
region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
During 2011, UNFPA approached
WAVE to develop a package to help
practicians in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to improve
health response to
gender-based violence. WAVE together with ANNA Center Moscow
and Sabine Bohne
from University of Osanbrück developed three modules:
Programming for
integration of GBV with Health System, Training Programme
for Healthcare
Providers, and Creating Referral Pathways integrated into
Health Care.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS,
RESEARCH & DOCUMENTS
The State Committee for
Family, Women & Children of Azerbaijan has begun to
create a data bank on
persons who commit domestic violence
Germany: Declaration for
Gender Quotas in Economic Decision - Making
Family members behind one
– third of sexual violence reported last year in Ireland
Opinion on the gender
dimension of active ageing and solidarity between
generations
Commentary on World
Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development
by Shahra Razavi
Forced Marriages in Germany
More Prevalent than Thought
Joint UN Commentary on the EU
Directive – A Human Rights based Approach. Human
Trafficking
Gender Perspective was
integrated into Global Action to Prevent War
Women’s Human Rights
Training Institute
Violence against women:
UN expert concludes visit to Italy
INTERNATIONAL NEWS,
RESEARCH & DOCUMENTS
The State Committee for
Family, Women & Children of Azerbaijan has begun to
create a data bank on
persons who commit domestic violence
Azerbaijan has begun recording
information on persons who commit
domestic violence, using a database created by the Women
& Child Committee.
The aim of this project is to study the data on domestic
violence in the
country in order to realize the full picture on domestic
violence, prevent
further violence and to promote healthy family life.
For more information, please
visit:
http://abc.az/eng/news/main/60903.html
Germany: Declaration for
Gender Quotas in Economic Decision Making
On 15th December,
female representatives of six major
political parties and leading women’s organizations in
Germany, adopted
the ‘Berlin Declaration’. The declaration seeks to introduce
effective measures which allow for implementing of equal
opportunities for women
and men in economics decision making and increasing the
number of women in
management roles and supervisory bodies of companies.
Source:
http://www.womenlobby.org/spip.php?article2811&lang=en
To view the official declaration
and sign it (in Germany),
please visit:
http://www.berlinererklaerung.de/
Family members behind one
– third of sexual violence reported last year in Ireland
According to National Statistics
and Annual Report 2010, a one
– third of sexual violence victims were perpetrated by
friends,
neighbours or acquaintances. The majority of people
contacting the helplines
were survivors of sexual violence and one in 10 were
supporters, including
parents, partners and friends.
Contacts to
rape crisis centre helplines
rose 23 per cent from 2009 to 2010, the report found, with
more than 15,000
contacts made across the State last year. Among other
findings were that:
* Almost
half of sexual abusers of children
were family members;
* Some 28
per cent of adult sexual violence
was by partners;
* Some 20
per cent of survivors of child
sexual abuse said the perpetrators were under 18.
Some 85 per
cent of survivors were women,
and more than 95 per cent of perpetrators were men. More
than 40 per cent of
the female survivors had been subjected to sexual violence
in adulthood. Of the
310 male survivors, almost nine out of 10 had experienced
sexual violence as
children.
The figures
supported other findings that
male vulnerability to sexual violence decreased with age
whereas female
vulnerability did not significantly decrease.
Source:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1124/1224308056985.html
Opinion on the gender
dimension of active ageing and solidarity between
generations
For some time, Europe has been
experiencing the phenomenon of ageing
population due to low birth rates and greater life
expectancy. As women usually
live longer, the gender aspect must be taken into
consideration while ensuring
equality between women and men. Women face poverty more
frequently than men.
Gender differences and inequalities are both causes and
consequences of social
exclusion and poverty, most likely in old age. They
experience inadequate
access to basic services, such as housing, education,
healthcare, labor market
opportunities. There is a need to change and improve the
given situation.
To view the report, please
visit:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/opinion_active_ageing_en.pdf
Commentary on World
Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development
by Shahra Razavi
That the
World Bank has devoted its 2012
flagship publication to the topic of gender equality is a
welcome opportunity
for widening the intellectual space. However, it is also a
missed opportunity.
By failing to engage seriously with the gender biases of
macroeconomic policy
agendas that define contemporary globalization, and by
reducing social policy
to a narrow focus on conditional cash transfers, the
report is unable to
provide a credible and even-handed analysis of the
challenges that confront
gender equality in the 21st century and
appropriate policy responses
for creating more equal societies.
This is the first time the World
Bank has devoted its annual
flagship publication to the topic of gender equality. Given
the stature of the World
Development Report and its influence
on development debates, the 2012 edition is likely to
attract the attention of
numerous actors, both governmental and non-governmental. So
what are we to make
of the analysis and the messages that emerge from this
report? Does it provide
useful policy insights that can further the cause of gender
justice, especially
the interests of those women who find themselves on the
lower rungs of our increasingly
unequal and polarized societies?
To start with, a number of significant messages emerge from
the
report—significant because they are coming from the World
Bank, and more
specifically from the organization’s annual flagship
publication, rather
than being novel or cutting-edge in a more general sense.
First, those who have heard the World Bank always make the
instrumental
argument for gender equality will be pleased to know that
this report
underlines the intrinsic value of gender equality (without
forgetting that it
is also “smart economics”). Second, the attention to the
intrinsic
value of gender equality seems also to have triggered some
interest in gender
equality as a political project. Third, and importantly,
going against the “growth
is good for gender equality”–type of argument put forward by
World
Bank economists in the past, the report acknowledges that
gender equality will
not occur automatically as countries get richer. Fourth,
attention is paid to
the unequal division of unpaid domestic and care work
between women and men.
Despite these positive features, which take the World Bank’s
work on
gender equality forward in important ways, there are a
number of major gaps and
problematic policy implications that require critical
scrutiny.
First, despite the welcome
attention to
labour markets, employment issues and persistent
gender-based segregation
(chapter 5), the analysis of these timely issues falls short
in several
important respects.
Informality.
Although WDR 2012
makes occasional reference to
“the important challenges [that] remain for those outside
formal
employment” (p.267), there seems to be little recognition of
the
tremendous changes that have swept labour markets throughout
the world,
adversely affecting the security of workers. As research by
the ILO and others
has shown, informal employment tends to be a greater source
of employment for
women than for men in most developing regions, with women
often concentrated in
the most casual and exploitative segments. As women have
increased their
participation in the labour force—which WDR
2012 celebrates—the structure of the labour
market has also
changed, making informal/unprotected types of work the norm.
Gender wage gaps.
Women’s
disproportionate care responsibility, as the report points
out, is one of the
factors that limits and shapes their access to paid work.
The failure of labour
markets to acknowledge the contribution of unpaid
reproductive work to the
functioning of any economy is not, however, seen by the Bank
as a reflection of
the fact that labour markets, as social and political
institutions, are
“bearers of gender”. Labour markets are gendered
institutions also
by operating on the basis of formal rules and informal
practices that value
male and female labour differently, regardless of the levels
of “human
capital” they embody. WDR
2012 acknowledges
that with the closing of the education gap it is difficult
to explain the
observed gap between women’s and men’s wages in terms of
educational attainments (p.203), but then cautions that the
remaining gender
wage gap may reflect “additional unobserved or unmeasured
differences in
worker and job characteristics between women and men”
(p.205). The
problem with this reasoning—as with the human capital
“explanation”—is
that differences between female and male workers are
themselves very often the
outcome of structural and discriminatory forces, such as
fewer years of labour
market experience due to care-related reasons, and gendered
definitions of
skill that are saturated with sexual bias.
Moreover, the report provides a rosy assessment of
employment generation for
women in the export-oriented sectors. There is no mention of
employer
strategies in these sectors to manage risk by creating a
dual labour market,
consisting of a “nucleus” of largely male, skilled,
permanent
workers and a periphery of “flexible” relatively
“unskilled” female workers. Nor is there any mention of the
health
hazards of being exposed to pesticides and other harmful
substances (in the
horticultural sector, for example), or the intense “burnout”
suffered by workers in garments and electronic
manufacturing, who are
predominantly women. There is also complete silence about
job losses in the
context of trade liberalization (i.e., trade liberalization
is a two-way
process: cheap imports displace local manufacturing
employment).
The report’s policy recommendations in the area of
employment more
broadly—facilitating “part-time work” for women (despite its
well-known disadvantages in terms of earnings and social
benefits) and
“labour activation policies” to better connect labour supply
and
demand—are very weak. How such steps are going to tackle the
problem of
structural unemployment and underemployment that grips the
global economy is
far from obvious. Nor is there mention of the deleterious
affects of the
“deflationary bias” of macroeconomic policy on employment
generation. As far as WDR
2012 is
concerned, employment remains an issue for micro policies,
completely detached
from macroeconomic policy.
Second, moving to the
analysis of unpaid work,
the recommendations about the critical importance of public
investment in
infrastructure, especially the provision of clean water and
sanitation, are
perhaps among the more strategic elements emerging from the
report. Yet the
fiscal constraints that are likely to shape such investments
and the policies
that are needed for mobilizing or safeguarding revenues,
especially in the
current climate of fiscal austerity, are either not examined
at all, or given
short shrift. When it comes to the provision of services,
for health and child
care, the analysis is equally vague and problematic.
Maternal mortality, a
major concern of the report, can be reduced by providing
skilled birth
attendants (p.293). This can be through either public or
private providers, the
private option deemed to be “a cost-effective
[cost-effective for whom?]
alternative to the public provision of maternal health
services” (p.293),
or by providing “poor women with cash transfers conditional
on their seeking
health-care services known to reduce maternal mortality”
(p.294). One
would have thought that this would be the place for a much
stronger emphasis on
the critical importance of accessible public health
services. A missed
opportunity indeed
On childcare services, likewise, while some reference is
made to the advantages
of subsidized care services and the exclusionary effects of
high prices (p.222)
based on evidence from developed countries, the main policy
recommendation of
the report for meeting care needs in developing countries is
to make part-time
work possible for mothers (p. 223) so they can meet their
children’s care
needs, or to provide affordable “community-based” child
care. But
many low-income women who work informally are already making
adjustments to
their paid work (in terms of its duration and location) in
order to meet the
care needs of their children, and being penalized for it by
lower earnings.
Moreover, there is no mention of the concerns that have been
raised about the quality
of “community care provision”
which very often means less professionalized and cheaper
services with lower
staff/child ratios, and fewer facilities and materials,
targeted to poor
children. Nor is there any mention of the fact that those
running these
“community” services are “voluntary” and informal
workers, which very often means unpaid or poorly paid women.
Third, another missed
opportunity is with
respect to social policy (now widely termed
social protection), and
its gendered character. Throughout the report there are
repeated references to
conditional cash transfers (CCTs). There is no discussion of
social insurance
programmes and the gender-specific barriers they present to
women; there is
only a passing reference to the importance of pensions for
women’s old
age security (p.154), but no discussion of the gender biases
in pension
privatization so eagerly promoted by the World Bank in the
1990s. Moreover, in
the frequent references to CCTs, there is no mention of the
concerns that have
been raised by feminists about the added work burdens that
conditionalities
very often impose on mothers, nor is there any
acknowledgement of the evidence
that shows that the same results (in terms of children’s
school
attendance or nutritional status) can be obtained without
the conditionalities.
Fourth, there is no
attempt to explore the
relations between gender equality and macroeconomic
policy, despite
the burgeoning literature on this topic. The reasons for
this major oversight
may be partly conceptual: the report’s framework is grounded
in neoclassical
microeconomics. While this microeconomic framing may have
blinded the report to
macroeconomic policy, there is probably more to this
oversight than
conceptual/methodological consistency. There is a vague
mention of “the
recent food, fuel and financial crises” (p.255), but no
acknowledgement
(despite all the concern expressed about women’s heavy
unpaid work
burden) that the current and previous economic crises and
post-crisis fiscal
retrenchments may have contributed to the intensification of
the time women and
girls devote to the unpaid reproduction of their households.
One cannot help
but conclude that macroeconomic policy is seen as a risky
terrain for the World
Bank’s gender analysts to venture into.
Finally, a couple of
additional issues emerge
prominently from the report: one
being the need to strengthen women’s access to land and
their ownership
of property, including land. The report notes
the ways in which both
land and credit markets often work to women’s disadvantage.
While it
would be a welcome move for formal credit institutions,
agricultural extension
services and marketing outlets to be more responsive to the
needs of women
farmers, as the report recommends, one is left wondering if
this would be
sufficient to solve the challenges that confront
smallholders in many contexts:
volatile commodity markets, rising food prices (bearing in
mind that most
smallholders are net food-buyers) and environmental hazards.
Moreover, one
wonders what land titles and tenure security for women would
mean in practice
when the granting of individual titles (or joint titles) is
part of a larger
programme of individualization and commodification of all
collectively held
land, as in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The
implication here is that
legal reforms have to be judged by multiple criteria:
women’s interests
are very often best served by simultaneously addressing
broader community
interests as well as gender discrimination—especially in the
context of
contemporary large-scale “land grabs” undertaken by both
corporate
and public interests for agricultural or industrial
purposes.
A related theme—family
laws—is
also given prominence in WDR 2012.
This again is a welcome move and addresses one of the areas
of feminist
activism that has been relatively neglected within
mainstream policy debates.
However, the report’s discussion of family laws could have
thrown some
light on the social
forces that
stand in the way of reforming family laws and
realizing reproductive and sexual rights. There is no
mention, however, of the
worldwide rise of socially conservative religious forces of
various stripes
that virulently oppose the reform of inegalitarian family
laws. Similarly, as
far as WDR 2012
is concerned,
sexual and reproductive rights are largely about pregnant
mothers (as in the
MDG focus on maternal mortality), and access to
contraception in order to
facilitate the welcome drop in fertility rates (population
control having been
a long-term preoccupation of the World Bank)—avoiding the
far more
controversial area of access to safe abortion that has been
under attack in
recent years.
To sum up, WDR 2012
marks a
watershed in the World Bank’s thinking on gender equality:
by
acknowledging the intrinsic value of gender equality, by
questioning the
“growth is good for gender equality” orthodoxy underpinning
the
World Bank’s earlier work, by drawing attention to women’s
unpaid
reproductive work, and by highlighting the persisting gender
biases in family
laws, intra-household relations, and “segregations” in
labour
markets. However, in avoiding serious engagement with the
gender biases of
macroeconomic policy agendas that have defined contemporary
globalization, and
their adverse outcomes for women’s work, both paid and
unpaid, within the
context of rising inequalities and extensive labour
informalization, WDR
2012 fails to provide a credible and
even-handed analysis of the challenges that confront gender
equality in the 21st
century. The unfortunate reduction of social policy to a
narrow focus on CCTs
and the shading out of controversial issues (such as the
rise of fundamentalist
religious forces) will also reduce the report’s usefulness
to the
“policy maker”, as well as its staying power for other
constituencies who care about the subject.
Source:
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B42004CCC77/%28httpInfoFiles%29/E90770090127BDFDC12579250058F520/$file/Extended%20Commentary%20WDR%202012.pdf
To see full
commentary, please visit:
http://www.unrisd.org/80256B42004CCC77/%28httpInfoFiles%29/E90770090127BDFDC12579250058F520/$file/Extended%20Commentary%20WDR%202012.pdf
Forced Marriages in Germany
More Prevalent than Thought
A new study
has revealed that thousands of
young women and girls in forced marriages seek help every
year in Germany. The
vast majority of victims come from Muslim families, and
many have been
threatened with violence or even death. The numbers
involved are much higher
than previously suspected.
More women and girls living in
Germany are being forced into
marriage under the threat of violence than previously
thought, according to a
new study released by the German government.
In 2008, the most recent year
for which statistics are
available, 3,443 people sought help at counseling and
information centers
because they had already been, or were being, forced into
marriage. The vast
majority of those victims were women or girls, but 6 percent
were young men,
who, like many of the women, sought help because they were
threatened with
violence if they did not go through with the marriage.
New Laws
Against Forced Marriage
On July 1, 2011, a new law went
into effect in Germany in which
those who force women and girls into marriage can be
punished by up to five
years in prison. Böhmer, the federal integration minister,
said in a statement:
"The study clearly shows that our new laws in the fight
against forced
marriage were right and necessary."
Böhmer noted that in many of the
cases the women were forced to
leave the country after marrying. They would now have the
legal right to return
to Germany within 10 years, she explained. "The message is
that we are not
leaving girls and young women who have grown up in Germany
and gone to school
here on their own," she said.
Source:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,796760,00.html
Joint UN Commentary on the EU
Directive – A Human Rights based Approach. Human
Trafficking
Over the past decade, the
European Union has stepped up its
efforts to fight human trafficking, strengthening its focus
on prevention and
protection of victims. The adoption of the 2011 Directive on
preventing and
combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its
victims, replacing
Council Framework Decision 2002/629/JHA, is the most recent
sign of the
continued commitment of the European Union in this field.
The Directive
represents a critical step in addressing human trafficking
comprehensively.
The six
United Nations agencies responsible
for this report; the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
the UN Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the UN High
Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the
International
Labour Organisation (ILO), and the UN Entity for Gender
Equality and the
Empowerment of Women (UN Women), value the efforts and the
interest of the European
Union and its Member States to end trafficking in persons
and the renewed
emphasis on the protection of victims. We also welcome the
appointment of an
Anti-Trafficking Coordinator, whose responsibilities will be
critical to the
coordination and consolidation of the anti-trafficking
efforts of the European
Union and its Member States
Direct link
to full document:
http://www.unwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/UN-Commentary-EU-Trafficking-Directive-2011.pdf
Gender Perspective was
integrated into Global Action to Prevent War
Global
Action to Prevent War (GAPW) was
developed as a UN-based, transnational
network of civil society, academic and diplomatic partners
dedicated to
practical measures for reducing levels of global conflict
and to removing
institutional and ideological impediments to addressing
armed violence, mass
atrocities and severe human rights violations at the
earliest possible stages.
Women, Peace and Security were
highlighted as one of the general
priorities of GAPW. The international community has a
responsibility to promote
a security system capable of ensuring respect for women’s
rights and a robust
gender presence in the implementation of state and
international responsibility
to protect, in cases where those rights have been violated.
Help ensure full
implementation of various Security Council resolutions that
seek to ensure the
full participation of women in peace policies and practices
and end impunity
for gender-based violence, especially violence used as a
strategy by
governments to intimidate and suppress female populations.
GAPW works directly
with governments and regionally-based civil society
organizations to promote
security arrangements that can more effectively guarantee
the safety of women
seeking their rightful places in political and social life.
Source:
http://www.globalactionpw.org/?page_id=66
Women’s Human Rights
Training Institute
The
institute takes place in Bulgaria and
was founded by three partners in 2004 in order to provide
young lawyers from
Central and Eastern European and the Newly Independent
States in – depth
knowledge in women’s human rights protection in the areas,
such as:
·
violence against women,
·
sexual and reproductive health
and rights,
·
employment discrimination.
The WHRTI takes
place in Bulgaria, comprises four
sessions, and is
convened every six months for a
one-week session and
includes the same group of participants
throughout the two-year project period. The
working language of the
Institute is English.
The team of
lecturers and facilitators
comprises of well known professors, experts, and
practitioners from Central and
Eastern Europe, the United States and Western Europe
specialized in violence
against women, reproductive rights and employment
discrimination and have
expertise on various aspects of the use of the international
and regional human
rights mechanisms for the protection of women’s rights.
The alumni
of the WHRTI are also involved as
lecturers and facilitators. The Institute participants will
be trained to
examine existing legal theories that are currently applied
to women’s
human rights violations, including anti-discrimination legal
theories and
multiple/intersectional discrimination of women.
Over 30
young lawyers have participated in
the Institute from countries such as Albania,
Armenia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia,
Hungary, Ireland (observer),
Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia,
Slovakia, Turkey and
Ukraine.
For more
information, please visit:
http://www.institute.bgrf.org/
Violence against women:
UN expert concludes visit to Italy
Despite
efforts to combat violence against
women in Italy, the levels of such violence remain high and
there is an urgent
need to address the underlying structural causes of
inequality and
discrimination, the UN independent expert on violence
against women, Rashida
Manjoo, said on Thursday.
At the end
of a 12-day official mission to
Italy, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against women,
its causes and
consequences, stressed that the current political and
economic situation in
Italy was no justification to decrease attention and
resources allocated to
addressing issues surrounding violence against women,
especially since there
have been increasing instances of femicide and domestic
violence.
“I call on
all relevant stakeholders
to take on the responsibility at this crucial time to
promote human rights for
all, and most importantly, to keep the issue of violence
against women on the
national agenda,” Ms Manjoo said.
During her
mission to the country from 15 to
26 January, Ms Manjoo met women in custody, survivors of
violence, and visited
anti-violence shelters for women in Rome, Milan, Bologna and
Naples, as well as
an authorised camp for the Roma and Sinti community and an
immigration
detention center for irregular migrants. Ms Manjoo also had
meetings with
high-level officials and civil society representatives.
“My visit
focused broadly on violence
against women in four spheres, including the home, the
community, violence
perpetrated or condoned by the state, and violence in the
transnational
context,” Ms Manjoo said.
“I looked
into the issue domestic
violence, femicide, violence against women who face multiple
and intersecting
forms of discrimination, including Roma, Sinti and other
migrant women,
detained women, women with disabilities and transgendered
people.”
She
highlighted the multiple forms of
violence and discrimination in both the private and public
sectors faced by
minority women. This is exacerbated by their civil status,
whether regular or
irregular, their socio-economic realities, and their lack of
trust and
confidence in the state system, amongst others.
Ms Manjoo
said that there is a vast amount
of experience and expertise in Italy in the provision of
legal, social,
psychological and economic assistance to victims of violence
against women, and
that this should not be lost in the current economic
climate.
“Most
manifestations of violence are
underreported in the context of a family-oriented and
patriarchal society
where, domestic violence is not always perceived as a crime,
there is economic
dependency, and there are perceptions that the state
response to such
complaints will not be appropriate or helpful,” she said.
“A
fragmented legal framework and
inadequate investigation, punishment for perpetrators, and
compensation for
women victims of violence, also contributes to the silencing
and invisibility
surrounding this issue.”
Ms Manjoo
called for holistic solutions to
address the individual needs of women as well as the social,
economic and
cultural barriers belying such violence. She added that
systemic, structural
inequality and discrimination often facilitate violence
against women.
Ms Manjoo
will present the comprehensive
findings from her mission at the June 2012 session of the
Human Rights Council.
Source:
http://womenlobby.org/spip.php?article3010&lang=en
To view full statement, please
visit:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=11784&LangID=E
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