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Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- The obligation to provide reparations to women subjected to violence is much more clearly spelled out in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which places upon the State the duty to develop penal, civil, labour and administrative sanctions in domestic legislation to punish and redress the wrongs caused to women who are subjected to violence. The Declaration states that women who are subjected to violence should be provided with access to the mechanisms of justice and, as provided for by national legislation, to just and effective remedies for the harm that they have suffered, and that States should inform women of their rights in seeking redress through such mechanisms (art. 4 (d)). In the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women, it is envisaged that States must undertake to establish fair and effective legal procedures for women who have been subjected to violence and the necessary legal and administrative mechanisms to ensure that women subjected to violence have effective access to restitution, reparations or other just and effective remedies (art. 7 (f) and (g)). The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa expressly states that women who are subjected to violence through violations of their rights to life, integrity and security of person should have access to reparations including rehabilitation (art. 4) and obliges the State to create mechanisms to increase the participation of women in planning, formulation and implementation of post-conflict reconstruction and rehabilitation (art. 10). However, as pointed out by the previous Special Rapporteur, "very little information is available regarding State obligations to provide adequate reparations for acts of violence against women … this aspect of due diligence remains grossly underdeveloped".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- The little attention devoted to reparations, both at a substantive and procedural level, for women who suffer violence contrasts with the fact that women are often the target of both sex-specific and other forms of violence, not only in times of conflict but also in ordinary times. Women often bear the brunt of the consequences of violence that targets them, their partners and dependants. Given the disparate and differentiated impact that violence has on women and on different groups of women, there is a need for specific measures of redress in order to meet their specific needs and priorities. Since violence perpetrated against individual women generally feeds into patterns of pre-existing and often cross-cutting structural subordination and systemic marginalization, measures of redress need to link individual reparation and structural transformation. Additionally, women who experience violence have traditionally encountered obstacles to accessing the institutions that award reparations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- There are signs that the traditional neglect of women in the reparations domain, best exemplified by the largely unsuccessful movement for reparations for the so-called "comfort women", is ending. The international legal response to violence against women over the past 15 years and the explicit recognition of violence against women as a human rights concern within the United Nations serve as indicators. Furthermore, the inroads of feminism in international criminal law, crystallizing in the inclusion of some forms of gender violence as war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, were accompanied by relevant discussions about how other transitional justice mechanisms, and not just criminal courts, could be rendered more inclusive to women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- Academic reflection and civil society activism have certainly contributed to placing the question of gender-sensitive reparations on the national and international agenda. In the last few years, the first monographic volumes addressing reparations for women have been seen. Furthermore, feminist transnational movements working on fighting impunity against gender violence in armed conflict are now leading the debate on women and reparations. The Nairobi Declaration on Women's and Girls' Right to a Remedy and Reparation adopted in 2007 by women's rights advocates and activists and survivors of sexual violence in situations of conflict is the best expression of this transnational growing concern to provide women and girls with adequate reparations. Mobilization concerning reparations at the national level by victims' groups, human rights groups and women's associations has also increased.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- The importance of women's participation in reparations discussions and processes cannot be overestimated. Without the participation of women and girls from different contexts, initiatives are more likely to reflect men's experience of violence and their concerns, priorities and needs regarding redress. Additionally, without such participation, an opportunity is missed for victims to gain a sense of agency that may in itself be an important form of rehabilitation, especially when victims come to perceive themselves as actors of social change. Finally, such participation is important for women and society in general to draw the links between past and present forms of violence and seize the opportunity provided by reparations discussions to press for more structural reforms.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- With this scheme in mind and thinking about women as potential beneficiaries of reparations, the first hurdle relates to the fact that much of the violence that women and girls experience predates the conflict and only continues to aggravate the discrimination to which they are subjected in the post-conflict scenario. Even in non-conflict scenarios, acts of violence against women are part of a larger system of gender hierarchy that can only be fully grasped when seen in the broader structural context. Therefore, adequate reparations for women cannot simply be about returning them to where they were before the individual instance of violence, but instead should strive to have a transformative potential. Reparations should aspire, to the extent possible, to subvert, instead of reinforce, pre-existing structural inequality that may be at the root causes of the violence the women experience before, during and after the conflict.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- Women-centred processes of reparations require participation of women in the process of shaping, implementing, monitoring and evaluating reparations programmes; design of a reparations procedure that renders it accessible to all women and girls; investigation of facts to determine whether certain violations of rights have taken place and making sure that those violations that target women and girls have been duly included; determination of harms, including those which are gender-specific or have a differential impact on women and girls; identification of responsibility for the violation, including by omission, and by those perpetrators that target women and girls; and determination of measures of redress aimed at returning the victim to where she was before the violation took place, except for when those measures may in themselves be discriminatory or fail to address the structural roots underlying the violence.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Civil & Political Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- The question of timing is also important in determining women's access to reparations, especially for crimes of a sexual nature. Since the preconditions for reporting and testifying on sexual abuse are not always present in the aftermath of conflict or repression - especially in poverty-ridden scenarios where women's health conditions are extremely poor - reparations programmes should not sacrifice adequate accessibility to the otherwise legitimately felt urgency of society to move forward. Narrow applications deadlines or a closed-list system may not allow different victims to come forward and claim reparations when they feel physically and psychologically prepared to do so.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- In contexts of mass atrocity and multiple gross violations, the real challenge of reparations programmes is how to select the rights whose violation will trigger access to benefits and how to confine the circle of those who will qualify as beneficiaries. No programme to date has articulated the reasons to consider some violations worse than others, thus very rarely rendering reparations benefits to predominantly marginalized groups. The fairly limited but also traditionally conceived catalogue of violations of civil and political rights on which reparations programmes in the past have concentrated covers mostly those violations which are taken as paradigmatic expressions of political violence. Not surprisingly, these are the violations that in many scenarios target men disproportionately. Women have thus been excluded from reparations programmes, despite the terrible impact of violence on women, leaving them in a precarious position, with the responsibility for children and other dependants, without income-generating skills and subjected to stigma and poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 45
- Paragraph text
- The inclusion of gross violations against women in the list of wrongdoings that will trigger reparations has to be underpinned by the notion that the same violations may entail different harms for men and women, but also for women and girls from cultural minorities. For instance, harms emanating from sexual violence - including the contraction of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, undesired pregnancies, complications due to often unsafe abortions, unwanted children, loss of reproductive capacity, fistulas and vaginal injuries, and multiple psychological disorders - are always compounded with social stigmatization and ostracism by the family and/or community, subsequent emotional distress, loss of status and the possibility to marry or have a male protector, and access communal resources. None of the reparations programmes in the post-conflict or post-authoritarian scenario has explicitly referred to forms of reproductive violence (such as forced impregnation, forced abortion or forced sterilization) as separate categories. Explicit recognition and visibility of various forms of violence and the ensuing harm is required for responsive reparation programmes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Harmful Practices
- Health
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 47
- Paragraph text
- The definition of "victim" endorsed by the Basic Principles and Guidelines assumes that, although the violation of a right is a precondition for the right to reparation, the relationship between the right and the violation, for purposes of reparation, is mediated by the notion of harm. As a result, the potential rights holders include not only victims, but also others, such as close family members and dependants, who are affected or harmed as a consequence of the violation. This notion of victim that links rights and harms allows for the reflection that every gross violation generates a "community of harm" which impacts others to be reflected. Bringing the notion of harm to the fore can also allow victims to be prioritized according to the severity of the harm endured. Both expanding beneficiaries and prioritizing victims and beneficiaries according to harm can have important consequences for women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 50
- Paragraph text
- Since women and girls who are subjected to gender violence, including sexual violence and forced unions, are often re-victimized in their families and communities, restitution of identity, family life and citizenship for them may require measures that target their wider communities - including attempts to subvert cultural understandings around the value of women's purity and sexuality. Although some of the intangible assets that are often taken from victims of sexual violence, such as virginity or social standing, cannot be returned, all the tangible assets of which victims of sexual violence are commonly stripped should be borne in mind. Communal and family ostracism, abandonment by spouses and partners and becoming unmarriageable or sick are all too commonly synonyms of material destitution, and the costs of ongoing medical treatment, pregnancy, abortions, and raising children resulting from rape, are all too real to deny. To date, no reparations programme has succeeded in fully reflecting the economic impact of raising children born of rape.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Providing some form of material reparation to help victims rebuild their lives is of great importance, as the disruption of normalcy by large-scale violence or repression has especially deleterious effects on women's material well-being. The reconstruction challenge entails special economic hardships for them, including providing for those survivors in need of care. In many societies, under either national or customary law, discrimination against women in the inheritance system increases significantly the difficulty for wives and daughters of victims receiving reparations. The discussion around women-centred economic compensation should also look into types of material benefits that, in certain settings, may help women pursue what they perceive to be autonomy-enhancing life-projects, and may therefore be more transformative.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 57
- Paragraph text
- Reintegration and rehabilitation may also require adopting women-friendly forms of distribution of services and creating opportunities that were previously denied to victims, often on the grounds of sex, including through meaningful employment, education, skill training, access to land titles and initiatives such as microcredit to motivate economic entrepreneurship. Because the experience of conflict or political repression leads many women to become publicly and politically active for the first time in their lives, encouraging this agency, including by promoting women's associations or political parties, could also be a way of rehabilitating women in a way that does not return them exclusively to their homes and family lives.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 59
- Paragraph text
- Who apologizes, what for, where and how can all be relevant considerations in assessing whether women will get adequate symbolic redress. Given women's predisposition to focus on the pain of their loved ones, it would be interesting to devise ways to duly recognize the individual dimension of such suffering and resilience. Personal letters of apology can be the best way of recognizing women when accompanied by public gestures of recognition. However, it is important not to forget that women and girls who carry the stigma of their victimization, such as victims of sexual violence, might have much to lose from public recognition of their victimization if they are named.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 60
- Paragraph text
- An increasing number of countries have adopted a variety of traditional religious or community-based approaches for symbolic reparation and community reconciliation. They typically include community-level ceremonies and processes that "reconcile" or "cleanse" the perpetrator and victim and endeavour to restore collective harmony and rebuild broken relationships. These proceedings also often include some form of redress that the perpetrator agrees to give to the victim. However, there is a need to guard against assumptions about the inherent value of such procedures as, despite often being more accessible, they carry the risk of recreating the structures of control and prejudice that women, girls and other exploited groups are struggling to eliminate.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- Guarantees of non-repetition offer the greatest potential for transforming gender relations. In promising to ensure non-recurrence, such guarantees trigger a discussion about the underlying structural causes of the violence and their gendered manifestations and a discussion about the broader institutional or legal reforms that might be called for to ensure non-repetition. A gender-sensitive reparations programme should seize this opportunity to advance, as part of the venture of constructing a new and more inclusive democratic order, a society that overcomes the systemic subordination of women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 63
- Paragraph text
- In the aftermath of violent conflict, when "normalcy" is restored, women are subject to new and sometimes higher levels of violence from men whom they know in the family and the community. Internalization of violent mechanisms of conflict resolution, accumulated and unresolved feelings of male impotence and frustration, male anxiety around the empowerment of women who have become politically visible during the conflict or simply the increased vulnerability of women may be some of the reasons that make women the targets of rising levels of violence after official peace or democracy has been declared. Reparations programmes that take place at one given point in time and inevitably look to the past have inherent limitations to address future violations. However, the type of guarantees of non-repetition can ground practical obligations on the part of the State to take into account the foreseeable short- and medium-term legacies of its violent past for women and, more specifically, adopt measures to avoid the exploitation of new forms of vulnerability.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Humanitarian
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- Recently, the notion that reparations benefits can be distributed to collectivities has garnered interest and support. Both the Basic Principles and Guidelines and the updated set of principles for the protection and promotion of human rights through action to combat impunity endorse the idea of collective reparations. However, the term "collective reparations" is ambiguous; "collective" is both used to qualify the "reparations", i.e., the types of goods distributed or the mode of distributing them, and the "subject" who receives them, namely, collectivities, including ethnic or racial groups who might have been particularly targeted. Despite an increased interest in exploring collective forms of reparation, virtually no discussion is taking place on how this interest may intersect with interest in doing justice to women through reparations programmes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 66
- Paragraph text
- A form of collective harm that deserves particular attention is group-based harm as a result of group-based affiliation. Collective measures of redress may be thought of as particularly apposite to address the legacy of violence on the identity or status of groups such as indigenous peoples. Women or children, however, are rarely thought of in collective terms, even though gender-specific and age-specific forms of violence happen to women and children precisely because they are women and children. Women and girls should not be rendered invisible under the notion of the collective and should be consulted at all stages of discussions.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Ethnic minorities
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 68
- Paragraph text
- One example relates to forced sterilization programmes and the emergence of judicial awards of compensation. Many such sterilization policies were instituted in countries around the world, usually as part of eugenics programmes to prevent the reproduction of members of the population considered to be carriers of "defective genetic or social traits". Women were sterilized without informed consent: several died from post-surgery complications, while others faced health problems, psychological complications, unemployment and family isolation. More recently in certain countries, abusive practices in the implementation of sexual and reproductive health programmes as part of population control policies have led to systemic violations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Health
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- Despite a number of courts having ruled that such practices were a violation of both physical integrity and privacy of the women, judicial arenas for contesting forced sterilization and receiving compensation are fraught with difficulties. Women confronted with the traditional structural and administrative limitations in accessing justice, especially if they are poor or belong to minority or excluded groups, need to overcome specific obstacles when making claims to redress historical injustices. Often, financial compensation has been denied by ordinary courts because of such legal barriers as the statute of limitations. Furthermore, the focus has mostly been restricted to insufficient monetary compensation.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Harmful Practices
- Health
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 71
- Paragraph text
- The single most organized and well-documented movement for reparations for women is that for the so-called "comfort women". Since the late 1980s, survivors have come forward to bear witness and mobilize international public opinion, asking for an official apology and reparation. Survivors have rejected financial aid gestures as inadequate and reiterated their desire for a formal apology and individual compensation through public funds rather than a welfare- or benevolence-type of assistance based on socio-economic needs. As victims of sexual crimes, they do not want to receive economic compensation without an official apology and official recognition of State responsibility.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 77
- Paragraph text
- In November 2009 the Inter-American Court ruled in what will undoubtedly become a landmark case in the field of reparations for women: Cotton Field v. Mexico. This case concerns the abduction, killing and sexual violence of two minors and a young woman by non-State actors in 2003, and the subsequent failure of the State to diligently investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators and to treat the relatives of the deceased in a dignified way. The Court found that the State of Mexico violated the rights to life, freedom, personal integrity, access to justice and legal remedies and the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of sex under the American Convention. It also considered that Mexico had infringed its obligations by failing to apply due diligence to prevent, investigate and impose penalties for violence against women or its duty to provide adequate responses in the legal system to punish and eradicate violence against women, thereby infringing the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women. This decision is seminal in that it is the first time that the Court has embraced the concept of gender-sensitive reparations with a transformative aspiration. The State of Mexico has been mandated to provide a variety of reparation measures to the victims, including monetary compensation, symbolic redress, and a wide set of future looking guarantees of non-repetition. Family members and closely affiliated persons of the deceased who can be considered as having been harmed and hence deserving of reparations (who in this case included all those who had self-identified as injured parties including the mothers, sisters-in-laws and nieces of the deceased) received reparations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Youth
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 79
- Paragraph text
- The European Court's case law has proven increasingly sensitive to the seriousness of violence against women, the importance of due diligence standards when it comes to framing State responsibility and the challenges surrounding evidence. The reparations framework traditionally embraced by the Court is rather narrow and has not allowed full recognition of the moral and material harm that women subjected to violence experience. No measures of satisfaction, symbolic recognition, rehabilitation or guarantees of non-repetition have been granted and the treatment of pecuniary damages has been very narrow, as it requires high standards of proof and fails to include future expenses, even in cases where they are foreseeable. This approach does not reflect an understanding of either the true material harm following a violation, or its sex-specific dimension.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 80
- Paragraph text
- In the 2009 case of Opuz v. Turkey, the Court found Turkey in violation of its due diligence obligations to protect women from domestic violence and - for the first time - held that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination under the European Convention. The case was brought by Ms. Opuz who, along with her mother, suffered years of brutal violence at the hands of her husband. Despite their complaints, the police and prosecuting authorities did not adequately protect the women and, ultimately, Ms. Opuz's mother was killed by the former husband. The Court found that there had been a violation of right to life with respect to the applicant's mother, a violation of the prohibition of torture and of inhuman and degrading treatment on account of the authorities' failure to protect the applicant against her ex-husband's violent and abusive behaviour and a violation of the prohibition of discrimination.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 84
- Paragraph text
- The limits of ordinary and extraordinary judicial proceedings to achieve the full and comprehensive realization of women's right to reparations are also examined in the report. Against this backdrop, it is argued that gender-responsive administrative reparations schemes can obviate some of the difficulties and costs associated with litigation. The administrative arena also enables a more proactive approach to the involvement of a larger group of people, including victims, at all levels - from conceptualization of reparation schemes, to reaching victims, to understanding the structural component of the violations - including the share of State responsibility by either action or omission, and the gender-specific impact of the violence on women's and girls' lives.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence 2010, para. 85
- Paragraph text
- Reparations for women cannot be just about returning them to the situation in which they were found before the individual instance of violence, but instead should strive to have a transformative potential. This implies that reparations should aspire, to the extent possible, to subvert instead of reinforce pre-existing patterns of cross-cutting structural subordination, gender hierarchies, systemic marginalization and structural inequalities that may be at the root cause of the violence that women experience before, during and after the conflict. Complex schemes of reparations, such as those that provide a variety of types of benefits, can better address the needs of female beneficiaries in terms of transformative potential, both on a practical material level and in terms of their self-confidence and esteem. Measures of symbolic recognition can also be crucial. They can simultaneously address both the recognition of victims and the dismantling of patriarchal understandings that give meaning to the violations.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Continuum of violence against women from the home to the transnational sphere: the challenges of effective redress 2011, para. 73
- Paragraph text
- Further jurisprudence with regard to reparations includes the case Opuz v. Turkey, before the European Court of Human Rights. The case was brought by Ms. Opuz, who, along with her mother, suffered years of violence at the hands of her husband. Despite their complaints, the police and prosecuting authorities did not adequately protect the women and, ultimately, Ms. Opuz's mother was killed by the former husband. The Court decided to award the victim non-pecuniary damages for the anguish and distress suffered on account of the killing of her mother and the authorities' failure to undertake sufficient measures to prevent the domestic violence perpetrated by her husband through deterrent punishment measure.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Continuum of violence against women from the home to the transnational sphere: the challenges of effective redress 2011, para. 76
- Paragraph text
- It has become increasingly clear that there is a correlation between prevalence rates and effective and responsive accountability measures. The investigation, prosecution, protection and redress measures, offered to women victims of violence, will have a direct effect on the prevalence rates of such violence. The ultimate objective of States' efforts when investigating and punishing acts of violence against women, and when protecting and offering redress to victims of such violence, should be the prevention of revictimization and future acts of violence by addressing structural discrimination and ensuring empowerment of women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2011
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph