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3. Violence against women
3. Violence against women
Aim. To clarify what is meant by gender-based violence( GBV) and emphasise that violence against women in its various forms, including sexual violence, is a serious human rights violation.
In 1993, the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women offered the first official definition of GBV:“ Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”.
PART I: POINTS OF DEPARTURE
From a power perspective, it is obvious that the weaker of two parties is always more vulnerable and at greater risk of harm. Gender inequality can therefore be linked to acts of GBV. However, this is sometimes considered to reflect a Western way of thinking. It is sometimes argued that advocacy to prevent GBV is not always about protection or upholding international human rights, but imposing Western values. We believe that culture cannot be used as an excuse to justify GBV. The trauma, fear and vulnerability which women experience when they suffer violence promote and reinforce traditional and cultural power relations that entrench conditions and relationships that allow GBV to persist. For instance, they can deepen the assumption that a woman is to be blamed if she is raped( Yuksel 2012).
Women’ s human rights are frequently violated in many places. Kofi Annan( 1999) said:“ Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. And it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace.”‘ Violence against women’ refers to a wide range of acts that violate women’ s human rights, including physical, psychological, and sexual harm or threats of harm. It occurs within families and in the community; it often takes place in the home, involving individuals with whom the woman has close relationships; but it is also committed in public, in the street. In both cases, those responsible are frequently allowed to get away with what they do to women, though their acts have serious consequences for the women themselves and for their families and communities.
In recent years, the United Nations and a growing number of governments have taken an important step forward by recognising that violence against women is a human rights issue – a social mechanism by means of which women are forced into a subordinate position relative to men, and often marginalised and isolated. Protecting women against this form of violence has become an international priority. It is no longer seen to be just a private matter: states have a duty to prevent it, punish those responsible, and provide redress to those who have been harmed.