WUNRN
Amnesty International
Direct Link to Full 57-Page October
2011 AI Report:
Torture has been widely viewed in the past in terms of pain and suffering inflicted on a person – usually assumed to be male – in the custody of the state. However, this narrow understanding excludes many forms of severe pain and suffering deliberately inflicted on women and girls. This report summarizes a two-day conference on the gender dimensions of the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY .................................................................................................7
Responsibility
for harms by non-state actors .................................................................8
Matching
advocacy and obligation .............................................................................10
INTRODUCTION
.........................................................................................................11
Why
do we need to think about the gender dimensions of torture?.................................11
PANEL
ONE: TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS: AN
OVERVIEW.................................................................................................................12
Why
was there (and still is) denial of gender-based violence as amounting to torture?
.....12
Recognizing
the exertion and abuse of power in a desire to extinguish the individuality and
the
identity of the victim ..........................................................................................13
State
responsibility under human rights law for acts of torture......................................13
Torture
by a state agent ........................................................................................13
State
responsibility for acts committed by non-state actors .......................................13
Challenges
and issues for further consideration...........................................................14
The
different definitions of torture in different contexts ............................................14
The
minimum level of severity to reach the threshold of torture .................................14
Is
the requirement of state consent or acquiescence in the torture part of the jus cogens
prohibition?
.........................................................................................................14
Torture
by private actors and due diligence obligations ................................................15
If
consent and acquiescence by the state is required in order to find a state responsible
for
torture by private actors, when is it proved? ........................................................15
What
level of knowledge must a state have of the risk to women before the positive duty
is
engaged?..........................................................................................................16
Where
a state is aware of a pattern of violence, what type of policy to try to
prevent it
must
be put in place to fulfil its due diligence obligations?.......................................16
How
do you address the ‘floodgates’ argument?.......................................................
17
CUMULATIVE
CHARGING: NAMING CRIMES ............................................................
17
What
is gained or lost by using the specific label of torture? Does this impact on the
understanding
of, for example, rape and sexual violence within the hierarchy of
international
crimes? ...............................................................................................
17
PANEL
2: WHAT ROLE DOES GENDER-BASED DISCRIMINATION PLAY IN HOW TORTURE
IS
DEFINED? & PANEL 3: WHO COMMITS TORTURE: THE VEXED QUESTION OF STATE
AND
NON STATE ACTORS ..........................................................................................
18
Developing
understandings of gender-based torture ....................................................
18
Legal
complexities: hierarchies of harm .....................................................................
19
The
“egregiousness in the everyday” .........................................................................
19
Discrimination
and impunity are closely linked...........................................................
20
Consent
and acquiescence, and failure of due diligence ..............................................
21
Should
torture by private actors be criminalized in domestic law as torture? ..................
22
Discussion
of specific types of harm..........................................................................
23
Domestic
violence................................................................................................
23
So-called
‘honour-based’ violence..........................................................................
27
Trafficking
..........................................................................................................
27
Violence
and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people ..... 28
Female
genital mutilation .....................................................................................
30
Rape
..................................................................................................................
35
Denial
of reproductive rights .................................................................................
37
PANEL
4: DEVELOPMENTS ACROSS INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE LAW & INTERNATIONAL
CRIMINAL
LAW ON ISSUES RELATING TO GENDER AND TORTURE ............................. 40
International
refugee law: the starting point ...............................................................
40
Recognition
by states of gender-based persecution ..................................................
41
Persecution
by non-state actors .............................................................................
42
Women
and subsets of women as a particular social group: the depoliticization of
women?...............................................................................................................42
Intersectional
discrimination .................................................................................43
International
criminal law .........................................................................................44
Sexual
violence in the context of conflicts: multi-faceted atrocities............................44
The
invisibility of the atrocities: observations on ICC Cases in the Democratic republic
of
Cumulative
charging for rape and torture ................................................................45
The
cumulative charging decision in the Bemba case...............................................46
Issues
for further consideration..............................................................................46
PANEL
5: STRATEGIES FOR OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO JUSTICE AND REPARATION
FOR
WOMEN AND GIRLS............................................................................................47
The
right to remedy and reparation ............................................................................48
The
UN Basic Principles and Guidelines ....................................................................48
Particular
barriers for women and girls .......................................................................49
Limitations
in traditional understandings of reparation.................................................50
Reparations
in the aftermath of mass violations: listening to survivors ...........................51
Outreach
as key to participation and the process of reparation......................................53
Reparation
as a process............................................................................................53
Challenges
and issues for further consideration...........................................................54
Which
human rights violations affecting women and girls fall within the Basic Principles
definitions
in their own right? ................................................................................54
What
must states do to provide a remedy for torture attributable to them because of a
failure
of due diligence? What must they do to repair the damage caused? How do we
achieve
justice and transformative reparation for women and girls?............................54
APPENDIX:
PANELLISTS .......................................................................