The United Nations Convention Against Torture defines
torture as "an act by which severe pain or suffering, whether
physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person", for a purpose
such as obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation, or
coercion, "or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind".
The Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish
Torture defines torture includes as torture "the use of methods upon
a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish
[her] physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical or
mental anguish".
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence defines domestic
violence as a pattern of behavior used to establish power and control
over another person through fear and intimidation, often including the threat
or use of violence, when one person believes they are entitled to control
another.
In the past, violence against women, particularly violence occurring
in the home or between intimate partners, was viewed as a private matter, not as
an issue of civil or political rights. Now however, by applying these legally
accepted definitions of torture to the violence that women face everyday around
the world, the international community has explicitly recognized violence
against women as a human rights violation involving state
responsibility
In 1993 the United Nations issued the Declaration on
the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The Declaration states
that, "States should exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, and in
accordance with national legislation, punish acts of violence against women,
whether those acts are perpetrated by the State or private persons". It sets
forth ways in which governments should act to prevent violence, and to protect
and defend women's rights. These measures form the standard of due diligence
that states are obligated to live up to.
The legal concept of due diligence describes
the minimum acceptable level of effort which a state must undertake to fulfill
its responsibility to protect individuals from abuses of their rights. Due
diligence includes taking effective steps to prevent abuses, to
investigate them when they do occur, to prosecute the alleged
perpetrator and bring him to justice in fair proceedings, and to ensure
adequate reparation, including compensation and redress. It also
means ensuring that justice is upheld without discrimination of any
kind. In various measures of this standard, in many countries of the world,
states are failing in their due diligence and failing to protect women from
violence
The failure of a government to prohibit acts of violence
against women, or to establish adequate legal protections against such acts,
constitutes a failure of state protection. Acts of violence against
women constitute torture when they are of the nature and severity envisaged by
the concept of torture and the state has failed to provide effective
protection.
Violence in the home is a global epidemic. Without
exception, women's greatest risk of violence is from someone she knows. Domestic
violence is a violation of a woman's rights to physical integrity, to liberty,
and all too often, to her right to life, itself. And when a government fails to
provide effective protection from such abuse, domestic violence is
torture
Domestic violence takes many
forms. From acid burning, dowry-related violence and "honor" killings
to rape, battery, and psychological abuse, women are subjected to the basest
forms of abuse and humiliation. Such torture of women in rooted in a
global culture which denies women equal rights with men, and which legitimizes
the violent appropriation of women's bodies for individual gratification or
political ends. Violence against women is compounded by discrimination on
the grounds of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social status, class, and
age and by social and cultural norms that deny women equality also renders
women more vulnerable to abuse.The common thread is discrimination
against women, the denial of basic human rights to individuals simply because
they are women. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
affirms the inadmissibility of discrimination and proclaims that everyone is
entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the declaration, without
distinction of any kind, including distinction based on sex.
States have a duty under international law
to take positive measures to prohibit and prevent torture and to respond to
instances of torture, regardless of where it takes place or whether the
perpetrator is an agent of the state or a private individual. When states
fail to take the basic steps needed to protect women from domestic violence or
allow these crimes to be committed with impunity, states are failing in their
obligation to protect women from torture.
Amnesty International considers domestic violence torture;
torture for which the state is accountable when such acts are of the
nature envisioned by the international standards of torture and when the state
has failed to fulfill its obligation to provide women effective
protection.
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