OMCT
PRESS RELEASE
International
Women’s Day Focuses on Violence against Women and
Girls.
The World
Organisation against Torture (OMCT), in its capacity of largest network of
organisations fighting against torture and other serious human rights
violations, has long documented the occurrence and the development of measures
to eradicate violence against women and girls locally, nationally and
internationally. We have noticed that overall progress has been made towards
combating the grave human rights violations women and girls are subjected to.
Studies have been conducted to analyse the causes of consequences of such
violence[1].
More and more countries have enacted laws that deal specifically with
gender-based violence. In July 2006, it was the case of the
While
welcoming such developments, OMCT recalls that as long as stereotypes regarding
the status of women in society have not changed impunity will reign supreme.
Discriminatory practices such as son preference, the forced marriage of girls,
dowry, among others, pave the way to the vulnerability of girls and women to
violence and exploitation. Also, the fact that in several societies only
fertile, married women are valued, places unmarried, divorced or sterile women,
as well as widows and lesbians in a situation of marginalisation. Social
constraints such as fear of repudiation, or sometimes the fear of violence on
the part of one’s husband, family or community, tend to dissuade women from
reporting the violations they are subjected to. In many instances, law
enforcement officials, who are expected to protect the population, are the ones
violating women’s rights, dissuading them from filing complaints, threatening
them or further harassing them.
It is
paramount to counter all arguments that relate to tradition, religion, social
values and all other forms of relativism that could be used to justify the lack
of measures to combat gender-based discrimination. The only way of doing so is
to recall all States’ duty to protect and promote women’s human rights, as
guaranteed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and in
General Recommendation n°19 of the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women[2],
and to foster the development of assessment mechanisms to monitor States’
compliance with such human rights norms.
In order
to achieve this goal, OMCT calls on the newly-established Human Rights Council
to place women and girls’ right to dignity and physical and psychological
integrity very high in the human rights agenda by thoroughly integrating it into its
work.
Contact: Mariana Duarte, Tel.: +41 22 809 49 39 - Fax: +41 22 809 49 29 – E-mail: md@omct.org