WUNRN
STOP IMPUNITY FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST
WOMEN - GLOBAL CONCERN
______________________________________________________
BREAKING THE SILENCE - TIME TO STRENGTHEN UN ROLE TO END IMPUNITY
International Day to End Impunity
GENEVA (22 November 2013) – A group of United Nations independent human rights experts* today called on the UN to adopt a more central role in the fight against impunity, and urged Member States to give more support to and strengthen on-going efforts to secure accountability and justice for human rights violations, including serious crimes.
“Ending impunity requires greater scrutiny, prosecution and punishment, and no other international institution is better placed than the United Nations to effectively contribute to this goal,” they stressed. “It is time for the UN to take a more decisive role in combating impunity and focus on all dimensions of the problem, including the erosion of the rule of law and the violation of general principles of justice.”
Welcoming civil society’s initiative to commemorate 23 November as an annual International Day to End Impunity, the human rights experts recalled that the Heads of State and Government pledged to ensure that impunity for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law is not tolerated, and that such violations are properly investigated, prosecuted and sanctioned, as stated in the UN Declaration on the rule of law adopted on 24 September 2012.
The experts recalled that States are required to hold accountable those who fail to protect and prevent, as well as those who perpetrate, violations of human rights, including the rights of women and other groups at risk. “Fighting against impunity implies not only the obligation of States to investigate violations and take appropriate measures in respect of the perpetrators and the victims, but also to ensure the inalienable right to know the truth about violations and take other necessary steps to prevent their recurrence”, they added.
“Efforts to address impunity must demand transparency and accountability of all State and non-State actors, including not only paramilitary forces, mercenaries, private military companies and terrorists, but also transnational corporations,” they said.
“The goal of ending impunity does not aim at revenge but at justice,” the independent experts underscored. “It requires objectivity and non-selectivity in identifying abuses that have not been redressed.”
“Addressing the challenge of impunity is not the one-way street of victor's justice and the punishment of the guilty among the vanquished,” they said. “The solution must be found in equal application of the law and the commitment to obtain an accounting by the powerful and the weak alike.”
The human rights experts noted that the fight against impunity requires Governments to ensure access to justice for all, to proactively make information available to all and to refrain from using national security, immunities or any other measures to cloak criminal behaviour.
“Universal access to diverse and reliable information, effective domestic
justice systems, the globalization of the jurisdiction of the International
Criminal Court and the practical realization of the right to truth are
necessary conditions to do away with impunity,” they concluded.
(*) The experts: Mr. Alfred de Zayas, Independent Expert on
the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order;
Mr. Anand Grover, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment
of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health;
Mr. Anton Katz, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries
as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of
peoples to self-determination; Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque, Special Rapporteur
on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation; Mr.
Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right
to freedom of opinion and expression; Ms. Gabriela Knaul,
Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers;
Ms. Gulnara Shahinian, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of slavery;
Mr. Heiner Bielefeldt, Special Rapporteur on freedom
of religion or belief; Mr. Juan Méndez, Special Rapporteur on torture
and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Mr. Maina Kiai,
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of
association; Ms. Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, Special
Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; Ms. Margaret Sekaggya,
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders;
Ms. Najat Maalla M'jid, Special Rapporteur on the sale of children,
child prostitution and child pornography; Mr. Pablo de Greiff, Special
Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and
guarantees of non-recurrence; Ms. Rashida Manjoo, Special Rapporteur on violence
against women, its causes and consequences; and the Working Group on Enforced
or Involuntary Disappearances
The United Nations human rights experts are part of what it is known as the Special
Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special
Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the United Nations Human
Rights, is the general name of the independent fact-finding and monitoring
mechanisms of the Human Rights Council that address either specific country
situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. They are charged by
the Human Rights Council to monitor, report and advise on human rights issues.
Currently, there are 37 thematic mandates and 14 mandates related to countries
and territories, with 72 mandate holders. Special Procedures experts work on a
voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their
work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in
their individual capacity. Learn more: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/Welcomepage.aspx
__________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
ListServe
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 10:46 AM
Subject: Impunity for Violence Against Women Is Global Concern - SR
VAW
WUNRN
|
|
|
Impunity for Violence Against Women
Is a Global Concern
14 August 2012 - Governments are urged
to act with due diligence to prevent and investigate violence against women and
girls, prosecute perpetrators and provide protection and redress to victims.
This was contained in the report to the Human Rights Council
by Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its
causes and consequences.
She noted that religious, cultural, and social norms and
beliefs are largely the causal factors for harmful practices resulting in
violence against women. Therefore countries’ efforts to comply must also
address these structural causes.
Globally the prevalence of different manifestations of
killings targeting women is increasing and a lack of accountability for such
crimes remains a concern.
“Whether labelled murder, homicide, femicide, feminicide, or
‘honour’ killings, these manifestations of violence are culturally and socially
embedded, and continue to be accepted, tolerated or justified - with impunity
as the norm,” stressed the independent expert reacting to the latest killing of
women in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Impunity for the killings of women has become a global
concern, a fact noted by the UN Secretary General BAN Ki-moon when he stated
that, “Impunity for violence against women compounds the effects of such
violence as a mechanism of control. When the State fails to hold perpetrators
accountable, impunity not only intensifies the subordination and powerlessness
of the targets of violence, but also sends a message to society that male
violence against women is both acceptable and inevitable”.
These killings targeting women, Rashida Manjoo decried, are extreme
signs of existing forms of violence against women and are not isolated
incidents that arise suddenly.
They are rather the ultimate act of violence which is
experienced in a continuum of violence.
“Failure of States to guarantee the right of women to a life
free from violence” has led to many deaths of women, she adds.
In her report, she further states that the killings can both
be active, direct or passive and indirect. The direct category includes
killings as a result of intimate-partner violence; killings related to
allegations of sorcery and witchcraft; armed conflict; dowry; gender identity
and sexual orientation as a result of hatred and prejudice; ethnic- and
indigenous identity; and female infanticide and honour killings.
The indirect killings she states include deaths linked to
human trafficking, drug dealing, organized crime and gang-related activities;
maternal mortality; deaths of girls or women due to simple neglect through
starvation, ill-treatment and deliberate acts of inaction by the State.
Killings by intimate partners have significantly been
underreported and the Special Rapporteur states in her report that studies have
shown that in many countries the home is the place where a woman is most likely
to be murdered.
On killings related to allegations of sorcery and
witchcraft, the report shows that the pattern includes violent murders,
physical mutilation, women being burned or buried alive, displacement,
kidnapping and disappearance of girls and women who are also subjected to
“exorcism”.
The report further adds that crimes committed in the name of
“honour” have been characterized as being among the most severe of the harmful
practices. The murders are carried out to “cleanse" family honour and are
committed with high levels of impunity in many parts of the world.
Honour crimes also include stoning, women and girls being
coerced to commit suicide after public denunciation of their behaviour, or
being subjected to acid attacks. These crimes often go unreported, are rarely
investigated and, when punished, sentences are far less than those for equally
violent crimes.
In her 2012 report, the Special Rapporteur on violence
against women, its causes and consequences, Rashida Manjoo from