A/HRC/32/42
United Nations
General Assembly
Distr.: General
19 April 2016
Original: English
Human Rights Council
Thirty-second session
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women,
its causes and consequences
Note by the Secretariat
In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes
and consequences outlines her vision in the exercise of the mandate entrusted to her by the
Commission on Human Rights in its resolution 1994/45, which established the mandate,
and Human Rights Council resolutions 7/24, 14/2, 16/7, 17/11, 20/12 and 23/25 and the
working methods she intends to use, building on the work of the previous mandate holders.
The Special Rapporteur provides an account of her activities since her appointment,
then examines the general context and main trends and challenges posed by violence
against women. She notes that there is a lack of full acceptance and incorporation of the
international norms and regional human rights standards on violence against women, and
believes that specific measures are needed to address this normative challenge and the
implementation gap. The Special Rapporteur intends to examine the legal and policy
frameworks of her mandate and international human rights mechanisms, focusing on the
gap between incorporating and implementing international and regional standards relating
to violence against women, the updating of general recommendation No. 19 of the
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the implementation
framework of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. She will
further focus on the links between violence against women before conflict, conflict and
post-conflict situations and reparations for such violence, and the implementation of the
Sustainable Development Agenda, among others. She is interested in strengthening her
collaboration with international and regional human rights mechanisms and in joint work
on actions necessary to improve the acceptance, incorporation, implementation and
updating of the current framework in order to accelerate the elimination of all forms of
violence against women.
The Special Rapporteur subsequently sets out the thematic priorities of her intended
action. In particular, her focus will be on the use of data on violence against women as a
tool for its prevention. She calls for the establishment of a “femicide watch” or “genderrelated killings of women watch” – and believes that this model could be extended to other
GE.16-06373(E)
*1606373*