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Adequacy of the international legal framework on violence against women 2017, para. 30
- Paragraph text
- In addition, several organizations highlighted that there was a normative gap at the international level and persistent obstacles to the protection of women subjected to gender-based violence, for example the normalization of sexual violence against women or an emphasis on preserving marriages and family rather than addressing men’s impunity for family violence. Concern was expressed about the spiral of fundamentalism and extremism that was currently contributing to exacerbating violence against women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Adequacy of the international legal framework on violence against women 2017, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Civil society organizations underlined that boys and men should be addressed in the treaty as both perpetrators and potential allies for change. In addition, the correlation of violence against women with violence against children, whether boys being witnesses to domestic violence against their mothers or children of all gender identities being subjected to corporal punishment, needed to be made clear and solutions needed to be part of the treaty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Children
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Vision-setting report 2016, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur encourages the inclusion of equality between women and men and violence against women as subjects of study in university curricula on law and related fields, and in training of legal professionals, such as judges and law enforcement officials. Training should include the international women's human rights framework and practical studies of the rich jurisprudence and case law on violence against women and the obligation of States to take appropriate measures to modify or abolish customs and practices that constitute discrimination against women and that affects women's right to a fair and just trial (see CEDAW/C/57/D/34/2011, para. 8.8).
- 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
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Modalities for the establishment of femicides/gender-related killings watch 2016, para. 31
- Paragraph text
- Research on homicide resulting from intimate partner violence makes clear that, almost without exception, women are at greater risk than men and that the majority of women homicide victims are killed by intimate partners who are men. Studies by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) also confirm that, in many countries, intimate partner or family-related homicide is the major cause of homicide against women and that their homicide rates are much more likely to be driven by this type of violence than by the organized crime-related homicide typology that disproportionately affects men. In 2012, almost half of all women who were murdered worldwide (47 per cent) were killed by a family member or intimate partner, compared with 6 per cent of homicide victims who were men. As with all forms of intimate partner violence, intimate partner femicide is likely to be significantly undetected and underreported. Prosecutions usually do not integrate a gender perspective. There is a clear need to focus on femicide for the purpose of establishing modalities for a national femicide watch and observatories on violence against women.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Vision-setting report 2016, para. 71
- Paragraph text
- The Special Rapporteur regards the prevention of violence against women as an aspect of the mandate that focuses on the elimination of the root causes of violence against women, and its consequences. To that end, she has identified the main components that should be further elaborated, including States' obligations to take positive measures to change harmful stereotypes relating to gender roles conducive to violence and, at the same time, to undertake activities to empower women and reduce their vulnerability to violence; the meaningful inclusion of men and boys to contribute actively to the prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls; and awareness-raising campaigns to fight violence against women on a regular basis and at all levels, in cooperation with national human rights institutions, civil society and non-governmental organizations.
- 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
- Boys
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Modalities for the establishment of femicides/gender-related killings watch 2016, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Those data had been gathered from publicly available sources, in particular media articles, and also included details of the perpetrators and the incident, including the date, names, police force jurisdiction, information about children, the recorded motive and the weapon used. Some of the data are verified, emanating from official reports, while other data, from media reports, are unverified. The census records women killed by men under any circumstance, not just intimate partner violence. Data are disaggregated by age, nationality, ethnicity and occupation of both the victim and perpetrator. Information on the health condition of the victim, including whether she was pregnant, and the relationship status with her perpetrator are recorded. This includes whether they were separated and, if so, the time that had elapsed between the actual separation or end of the relationship and the victim's death (from the information analysed, it appears that 53 per cent of intimate partner violence took place within one month of separation), whether the femicide took place in a context of the victim having rejected the perpetrator's advances or was committed in the course of another crime (e.g., high level of killings of older women in the course of burglaries) and any other information that would shed light on the nature of the femicide.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Men
- Older persons
- Women
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Modalities for the establishment of femicides/gender-related killings watch 2016, para. 55
- Paragraph text
- The femicide census project in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland began by using social media and blogging and later developed into an advocacy tool for the country to gather statistics in a different manner. It reports on the perpetrators and victims equally and includes a wide range of information about women who have been killed by men. It has relied on support from the private sector for the establishment and maintenance of its website. Information found in the census was gathered initially from a set of names that had been collected since January 2012 and recorded in a blog entitled "Counting dead women". The author of that blog had searched the Internet for news of women who had been killed by men.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Closing the gap in international human rights law: lessons from three regional human rights systems on legal standards and practices regarding violence against women 2015, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- Article 2 of the Protocol requires States to take positive action to address inequalities between women and men in State efforts to ensure that women enjoy their rights. Other articles set out obligations with respect to, among other things, the right to dignity; the right to life, integrity and security of the person; protection from harmful practices; rights in marriage, which include entitlement to property and the custody and guardianship of children; protection from early and forced marriages; the right of access to justice and equal protection of the law; the right to participate in political and decision-making processes; the right to peace; the rights to adequate housing, food security, education and equality in access to employment; reproductive and health rights, including control of one's fertility; and the right to be protected against HIV infection. The Protocol also includes specific provisions on the protection of rights of women with disabilities. All promotional and protective provisions in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other human rights instruments are equally applicable in the interpretation of the Protocol.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Men
- Persons with disabilities
- Women
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Existing legal standards and practices regarding violence against women in three regional human rights systems and activities being undertaken by civil society regarding the normative gap in international human rights law 2015, para. 13
- Paragraph text
- Article 2 of the Protocol requires States to take positive action to address inequalities between women and men in State efforts to ensure that women enjoy their rights. Other articles set out obligations with respect to, among other things, the right to dignity; the right to life, integrity and security of the person; protection from harmful practices; rights in marriage, which include entitlement to property and the custody and guardianship of children; protection from early and forced marriages; the right of access to justice and equal protection of the law; the right to participate in political and decision-making processes; the right to peace; the rights to adequate housing, food security, education and equality in access to employment; reproductive and health rights, including control of one's fertility; and the right to be protected against HIV infection. The Protocol also includes specific provisions on the protection of rights of women with disabilities. All promotional and protective provisions in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other human rights instruments are equally applicable in the interpretation of the Protocol.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Men
- Persons with disabilities
- Women
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 56
- Paragraph text
- Transformative remedies require that the problem of violence against women is acknowledged as systemic and not individual; and that this requires specific measures to address it as a gender-specific human rights violation. In her 2011 report, the Special Rapporteur articulated a gender-specific and holistic framework, including protection, prevention and empowerment approaches. Responses in laws, policies and programmes require that the historical, current and future realities of the lives of women be taken into account through a lens of indivisibility and interdependency of rights. Compromising the resources available to women's groups for service provision and advocacy, including through the prioritizing of men's groups, undermines transformative change efforts.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 61
- Paragraph text
- Violence against women is a systemic, widespread and pervasive human rights violation, experienced largely by women because they are women. The concept of gender neutrality is framed in a way that understands violence as a universal threat to which all are potentially vulnerable, and from which all deserve protection. This suggests that male victims of violence require, and deserve, comparable resources to those afforded to female victims, thereby ignoring the reality that violence against men does not occur as a result of pervasive inequality and discrimination, and also that it is neither systemic nor pandemic in the way that violence against women undisputably is. The shift to neutrality favours a more pragmatic and politically palatable understanding of gender, that is, as simply a euphemism for "men and women", rather than as a system of domination of men over women. Violence against women cannot be analysed on a case-by-case basis in isolation of the individual, institutional and structural factors that govern and shape the lives of women. Such factors demand gender-specific approaches to ensure an equality of outcomes for women. Attempts to combine or synthesize all forms of violence into a "gender neutral" framework, tend to result in a depoliticized or diluted discourse, which abandons the transformative agenda. A different set of normative and practical measures is required to respond to and prevent violence against women and, equally importantly, to achieve the international law obligation of substantive equality, as opposed to formal equality.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- There are many ideologies about the role of men and boys. Often, the focus is not on women as autonomous beings, disproportionately affected by inequality, discrimination and violence; rather, violence against women is conflated with the interests of men and boys. The tendency is for men's groups to argue both that the majority of men are not implicated in abuse and that all men suffer the consequences of being socialized into dominant perceptions of hypermasculinity, and that this accounts, in part, for recourse to violence. Thus, the argument is that, since both men and women are subject to gender stereotypes and since corrupting forms of power are as damaging to men as to women, both men and women would benefit from the dismantling of gender stereotypes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 74
- Paragraph text
- One strategy associated with the engagement of men and boys is to appeal to the idea that women deserve respect as mothers, sisters, wives and so on. Emphasizing personal relationships is said to make it easier to understand the consequences of violence against women. This is also seen as an effective strategy in overtly patriarchal societies, in which calls to consider women as rights-bearing individuals, irrespective of their marital status, are considered too radical to attract support, even among women themselves. This implicit suggestion thus distorts the issue of women as autonomous individuals deserving of respect, and renders regard for the rights of women contingent on their status in the private sphere, which further reinforces the public/private dichotomy.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- Transformative remedies require that the problem of violence against women is acknowledged as systemic and not individual; and that this requires specific measures to address it as a gender-specific human rights violation. In her 2011 report, the Special Rapporteur articulated a gender-specific and holistic framework, including protection, prevention and empowerment approaches. Responses in laws, policies and programmes require that the historical, current and future realities of the lives of women be taken into account through a lens of indivisibility and interdependency of rights. Compromising the resources available to women's groups for service provision and advocacy, including through the prioritizing of men's groups, undermines transformative change efforts.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 73
- Paragraph text
- There are many ideologies about the role of men and boys. Often, the focus is not on women as autonomous beings, disproportionately affected by inequality, discrimination and violence; but rather, violence against women is conflated with the interests of men and boys. The tendency is for men's groups to argue both that the majority of men are not implicated in abuse and that all men suffer the consequences of being socialized into dominant perceptions of hypermasculinity, and that that accounts, in part, for recourse to violence. Thus, the argument is that since both men and women are subject to gender stereotypes, and that corrupt and corrupting forms of power are as damaging to men as to women, both men and women would benefit from the dismantling of gender stereotypes.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 15
- Paragraph text
- The international community explicitly acknowledged violence against women as a human rights issue when it adopted the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action at the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. Standard-setting developments, such as general recommendation No. 19 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, further acknowledge violence against women as a form of discrimination that impedes or nullifies women's right to enjoy all other human rights on a basis of equality with men, and also address the obligations that States have to prevent and respond to violence against women. These developments are underpinned by an understanding that gender-based violence on women's rights to equality, bodily integrity and freedom from discrimination also affects numerous human rights.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- Between 1993 and 2013, the General Assembly adopted 57 resolutions relating directly or indirectly to the work of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. A seminal development was the adoption in 1993 of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which provided a comprehensive framework in terms of definition, scope, obligations of States to act with due diligence and the role of the United Nations. The Declaration constitutes a more explicit statement on violence against women and it has formed the basis for numerous subsequent resolutions. In the preamble to the Declaration, the General Assembly recognizes that the root causes of violence against women are patriarchy and the subordination of women; and that violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, and has led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and the prevention of the full advancement 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
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- Violence against women restricts women's freedom of movement in a number of significant ways. The fear of violence occurring in public spaces, including harassment and sexual assault, intimidates women into avoiding the public arena. Linked to this avoidance is the fear of violence in private spaces, if freedom of movement is exercised, without permission. The unequal access to resources between men and women and laws that restrict the movement of women, further preclude women's right to freedom of movement and their ability to exercise that right.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 66
- Paragraph text
- A brief analysis of the mandates and principles of organizations associated with engaging men and boys in efforts to counter violence against women reveals a series of internal contradictions that compromise the understanding of the foundational principles linked to women's human rights. This is reflected in several ways, including the reaffirmation of patriarchal norms of men as protectors and, by extension, women as victims; the reinstatement of the family as the principal referent for analysis; the depoliticization of the understanding of both gender equality and gendered violence; the reinforcement of the public-private dichotomy; the instrumentalization of arguments for the elimination of violence against women; the conceptual confusion over men, masculinity and gendered roles; and the justifications and contradictions in the shift to men and boys and its supposed link to binding international law obligations.
- 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
- Boys
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 58
- Paragraph text
- In her 2011 report (A/HRC/17/26), the Special Rapporteur noted a continuing lack of response to multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, both inter- and intra-gender, and its nexus with violence. She noted how the lack of attention to intersectionality not only inhibits policymakers from assessing inequalities between women and men, but also inhibits their ability to assess how differently positioned women experience discrimination and violence. The Special Rapporteur considered how violence is contingent on women's material conditions, individual attributes and social locations, and recommended a holistic approach that addresses systematic discrimination and marginalization. The holistic approach is based on the notion that, unless women can achieve economic independence and be empowered socially and politically, the realization of all human rights will remain abstract.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 75
- Paragraph text
- A brief analysis of the mandates and principles of organizations associated with engaging men and boys in efforts to counter violence against women reveals a series of internal contradictions which compromise the understanding of the foundational principles linked to women's human rights. This is reflected in several ways, including reaffirmation of patriarchal norms of men as "protectors" and, by extension, women as "victims"; reinstatement of the family as the principal referent for analysis; depoliticization of the understanding of both gender equality and gendered violence; reinforcement of the public/private dichotomy; instrumentalization of arguments for the elimination of violence against women; conceptual confusion over men, masculinity and gendered roles; and the justifications and contradictions in the shift to men and boys and its supposed link to binding international law obligations.
- 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
- Boys
- Families
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 62
- Paragraph text
- It is clear from the many concerns that numerous interlocutors have raised with the Special Rapporteur that, even though the shift to the "men and boys" agenda is fraught with difficulty, it appears to have attracted a great deal of funding, recognition and political support. In order to legitimize their mandates, many men's organizations claim that the inclusion of men and boys is a binding obligation called for in numerous international documents and frameworks, including the Rio Declaration of the Global Symposium on Engaging Men and Boys on Achieving Gender Equality, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 29 March to 3 April 2009. This Declaration outlines an obligation for States, United Nations agencies and donors to promote the agenda of engaging men and boys, and advocates the allocation of resources to further work in that direction. The Rio Declaration is an NGO declaration and does not have status comparable, in legal terms, with United Nations documents, and it was developed and promoted by the very men's groups that it provides for and strengthens. The distortion of the rationale and the interpretation of international human rights standards and frameworks, particularly as regards gender equality and engaging or partnering with men to transform gender inequality, is thus reinforced by such arguments. Such conflation of United Nations commitments with an NGO declaration has resulted in the mushrooming of independent men's groups and organizations, separate from the women's movement, many of which have redefined engagement with men and boys, in male terms.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Men
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 43
- Paragraph text
- Millennium Development Goal 6 commits Governments to combating HIV/AIDS, but exposure to HIV is positively correlated with gender-based violence and poverty. For example in Sub-Saharan Africa, women in the 19-24 age group are twice as likely to be infected as men, owing to sexual violence and related inequality in decision-making and autonomy. Rates of girls being infected have also increased owing to sexual assaults related to myths about preventing the transmission of HIV or curing AIDS.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Health
- Poverty
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 65
- Paragraph text
- One strategy associated with the engagement of men and boys is to appeal to the idea that women deserve respect as mothers, sisters, wives and so on. Emphasizing personal relationships is said to make it easier to understand the consequences of violence against women. This is also seen as an effective strategy in overtly patriarchal societies, in which calls to consider women as rights-bearing individuals, irrespective of their marital status, are considered too radical to attract support, even among women themselves. This implicit suggestion thus distorts the issue of women as autonomous individuals deserving respect and renders regard for the rights of women contingent on their status in the private sphere, which further reinforces the public-private dichotomy.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Harmful Practices
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Girls
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 69
- Paragraph text
- In the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the General Assembly recognized that violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women, and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men (resolution 48/104).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- Violence against women impairs and nullifies women's realization of all human rights, it prevents women from participating in their communities as full and equal citizens, it reinforces male dominance and control, it supports discriminatory gender norms and it maintains systemic inequalities between women and men. These factors, in turn, preserve and perpetuate conditions that enable gender-based violence to continue.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- Millennium Development Goal 1 aims to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. As noted in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the fear of gender-based violence is a major constraint on the mobility of women and limits their access to resources and economic activity. The major causes of women's poverty are embodied in unequal power relations between women and men, intertwined with patterns of gender-based violence.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Gender
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 70
- Paragraph text
- In the past few years there has been a move away from the understanding of "gender focus" as referring to women, including with regard to violence, as articulated and understood in international normative frameworks and by women's groups. One author aptly articulates the concerns and frustrations expressed by women's rights NGOs and by individuals as follows: gender, stripped of ideas of male privilege and female subordination, came to mean that women and men suffered equally the costs of the existing gender order. Women's organizations were increasingly asked 'if you are working on gender, then where are the men', and they were increasingly pressured to include men. On the heels of this pressure, a new … actor came into focus - men's organizations. The existence of already weakened women's organizations was now further threatened and feminist attempts at movement building faced additional challenges. The increasing focus on men and men's organizations … is seen by some as a new fad, the latest silver bullet to achieving gender equality, and a threat to women's organizations and women's movements. In this view, donor attention to men's organizations seems to signify a shift of support away from women's empowerment and women's leadership, and a handing over of the reins in the struggle for gender equality to men. Men are once more in charge - only this time, they are in charge of women's liberation struggles.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Violence against women: Twenty years of developments to combat violence against women 2014, para. 72
- Paragraph text
- From a pragmatic point of view, if men constitute the vast majority of perpetrators of violence against women, then engaging them in discussions, educating them to resist and reject the nature and consequences of hypermasculinity and misogyny and to overcome patterns of violence is an obvious step towards the elimination of violence against women. The feminist approach has commonly considered men as allies and targets of education in the quest for gender transformation. In recent years, many men's groups have moved from being targets of engagement and allies, to being leaders of initiatives on gender equality, especially through the setting up of specialized men's organizations to engage men and boys. The logic of the shift in focus appears to be self-defeating because it empowers the group to which perpetrators belong - and which overwhelmingly continues to maintain economic, political and societal structures of power, privilege and opportunity - to offer protection from violence and discrimination. The Special Rapporteur is also concerned that the dominant voices on engaging men and boys, whether through reporting, United Nations meetings or connection with the wider public through the press and popular culture, belong to a very small group of men who are linked to the most prominent organizations associated with the men and boys agenda. This raises numerous questions, including in respect of legitimacy and accountability.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Boys
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
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Violence against women as a barrier to the effective realization of all human rights 2014, para. 61
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- In the past few years, there has been a move away from the understanding of "gender focus" as referring to women, including with regard to violence, as articulated and understood in international normative frameworks and by women's groups. One author aptly articulates the concerns and frustrations expressed by women's rights NGOs and by individuals as follows: Gender, stripped of ideas of male privilege and female subordination, came to mean that women and men suffered equally the costs of the existing gender order. Women's organizations were increasingly asked "if you are working on gender, then where are the men", and they were increasingly pressured to include men. On the heels of this pressure, a new actor came into focus - men's organizations. The existence of already weakened women's organizations was now further threatened and feminist attempts at movement-building faced additional challenges. The increasing focus on men and men's organizations … is seen by some as a new fad, the latest silver bullet to achieving gender equality, and a threat to women's organizations and women's movements. In this view, donor attention to men's organizations seems to signify a shift of support away from women's empowerment and women's leadership, and a handing over of the reins in the struggle for gender equality to men. Men are once more in charge - only this time, they are in charge of women's liberation struggles.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Gender
- Person(s) affected
- Men
- Women
- Year
- 2014
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