WUNRN
UN Human
Rights Council 20
Harmful
Traditional Practices Against Women & Girls Panel
Laws vs.
Practice: Rhetoric vs. Reality
June 27,
20l2
12:00 -
2:00 p.m.
Palais
des Nations – Room XXI - Geneva
Statement by Rashida Manjoo
UN
Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
At the
outset, I would like to thank the Women's UN Report Network and the
Inter-African Committee for inviting me to address this panel on harmful
traditional practices against women & girls.
Throughout
the world, there are practices that are violent towards women and girls and
harmful to their well-being overall. Young girls are circumcised, bound by
severe dress codes, denied property rights or killed for the sake of honour in
the family. Although these and other practices constitute a form of violence,
they have often avoided national and international scrutiny because they are
seen as traditional practices that deserve tolerance and respect. This
highlights how the universality of human rights is often denied when it comes
to the rights of women and girls, and how cultural relativism can be wrongly
used to allow for inhumane and discriminatory practices against women.[1][1]
Although
dominant culture-based discourses sometimes justify or explain the violations
of women’s rights, the international normative framework on violence against
women has recognized the primacy of women’s right to live a life free of
gender-based violence over any cultural considerations.[2][2] The Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women is extremely clear. Article 5 states: “State
Parties shall take all appropriate measures: (a) To modify the social and
cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the
elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based
on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on
stereotyped roles for men and women. Likewise, the Declaration on the
Elimination of Violence against Women also states clearly, in article 4,
“States should condemn violence against women and should not invoke any custom,
tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to
its elimination”.
However,
cultural discourses and justifications continue to be used to challenge the
primacy of human rights and the validity of the principle of gender equality
and women’s human rights in general. This has become evident in my country
missions and thematic work, through which I have witnessed how harmful
practices are still affecting women and girls globally. While specific
manifestations of these practices differ from one region to region, the
underlying inequality and discrimination that underpins such practices, remains
universal.
During my recent mission to
As regards harmful practices related
to marriage, in my visit to
With regards to so called “honour” killings, my most
recent thematic report highlights diverse forms of violence against women,
including direct murder; stoning; women and young girls being forced to commit
suicide after public denunciations of their behaviour; and women being
disfigured by acid burns, leading to death. “Honour crimes” are also linked to
other forms of family violence, and are usually committed by male family
members as a means of controlling women‘s sexual choices and limiting their
freedom of movement. Punishment usually has a collective dimension, with the
family as a whole believing it to be injured by a woman‘s actual or perceived
behaviour, and is often public in character. The visibility of the issue and
the punishment also serves a social objective, namely, influencing the conduct
of other women.
This is an issue I noted during my recent mission to
During my latest country mission to
Many of
the practices described above, involve severe pain
and suffering, and may be considered torture. Furthermore, practices such as
those impacting property and marital rights, are inherently unequal, and
blatantly challenge the international imperatives towards equality.[3][3]
International
human rights norms establish the primacy of women’s right to live a life free
of gender-based violence and provide that States cannot invoke any cultural
discourses, including notions of custom, tradition or religion, to justify or condone
any act of violence. This also means that they may not deny, trivialize or
otherwise minimize the harm caused by such violence by referring to these
notions.
This
mandate has thoroughly analysed dominant culture-based paradigms that justify
or explain violations of women human rights, which reduce violence against
women to a cultural problem. Deeply-rooted patriarchal attitudes and conduct
based on the assumed superiority of men in the public and private spheres, and
the perception that women are weak and vulnerable, undermine women’s social
status globally. These values surface through various vectors, including
cultural practices and constitute key obstacles inhibiting structural and
attitudinal changes necessary to the full enjoyment of women’s human
rights.
Unfortunately,
identity politics and cultural relativist paradigms are increasingly employed
to constrain women’s rights. Essentialised interpretations of culture are used
either to justify violations of women’s rights in the name of culture, or to
categorically condemn certain cultures as being inheritably primitive and
violent towards women. This approach compartmentalizes women’s rights on the
basis of a superficial division between “traditional” and “modern” cultures. It
is biased in terms of “othering” Southern cultures, essentializing them as
being harmful to women, and projecting women from traditional cultures as being
uniformly victimized because of their ‘traditional cultures’. Simultaneously it
treats violence in non-Southern cultures as individualized aberrations, and not
as part of a culture that can and is often harmful to women. Both variants of
cultural essentialism ignore the universal dimensions of patriarchal culture
that subordinates, albeit differently, women in all societies and fails to
recognize women’s agency in resisting and negotiating culture to improve their
daily lives.
In light
of this, this mandate has advocated for locating culture within the equality
framework as part of addressing discrimination in the private arena, so as to
facilitate women’s participation, decision-making and representation within the
domain of culture. Such an approach allows for the unmasking of patterns of
domination within cultures rather than differences among them, enables the questioning
of hegemonic interpretations of culture, and, directs attention towards the
patriarchal, political and economic interests within and outside the community
- that gain from static, homogenous and monolithic representations of culture.
In order
to counter and transform culture-based discourses that hinder the
implementation of women’s human rights, States need to approach all forms of
violence against women as a continuum and intersectional with other forms of
inequality and discrimination. States also need to ensure that diverse women’s
voices within specific communities are heard and that the claim for a right to
a life free of violence is not sacrificed in the name of culture.
I wish
you fruitful and productive dialogues, as you discuss and analyse these issues
in today’s panel, and I thank you very much for your attention.