WUNRN
CULTURE & HUMAN RIGHTS: HOW CAN
WE CHALLENGE "CULTURAL" EXCUSES FOR GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE?
Gender Across Borders in collaboration
with Violence
is Not Our Culture: the Global Campaign to End Violence Against Women in the
Name of ‘Culture’ would like to welcome you to the second
part of a series exploring the relationship between culture and violence
against women. This second series is a result of the many articles we
received exploring the relationship between culture and violence against women
that simply couldn’t be ignored.
The UN Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women defines “violence against women as 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 deprivation of liberty, whether occurring
in public or in private life.”
Webster’s dictionary
defines culture as “the behaviours and beliefs characteristic to a particular
group.”
Throughout the world
culture is employed to justify discrimination and violence against women.
‘Culture’ is used to impose control over women’s bodies, sexuality, emotions,
decisions and actions, preventing them from expressing their own free will and
enjoying their fundamental freedoms and human rights. Regardless, of who
we are, where we are, we are all under the ‘control’ of ‘culture.’
Fortunately, culture
is not homogenous or static; it evolves and changes over time. The personal narratives,
journalistic articles, analytical pieces, critical essays and editorials that
poured in from around the world on abusive and degrading practices towards
women such as FGM, forced marriage, honour killings, polygamy, harmful
menstruation rituals and much more demonstrate that cultural evolution and
change starts with each one of us.
We can break harmful
practices upheld by ‘tradition,’ claims of religious authority or cultural
authenticity.