WUNRN
Via WAVE - Women Against Violence
Europe
FEMICIDE - A GLOBAL ISSUE THAT
DEMANDS ACTION
Direct Link to Full 156-Page 2013
Report:
Femicide is the ultimate form of violence against women and girls and takes multiple forms. Its many causes are rooted in the historically unequal power relations between men and women and in systemic gender-based discrimination. For a case to be considered femicide there must be an implied intention to carry out the murder and a demonstrated connection between the crime and the female gender of the victim.1 So far, data on femicide have been highly unreliable and the estimated numbers of women who have been victims of femicides vary accordingly. Femicides take place in every country of the world. The greatest concern related to femicide is that these murders continue to be accepted, tolerated or justified - with impunity as the norm. To end femicide we need to end impunity, bring perpetrators to justice, and every individual has to change his/her attitude towards women.
To date, the United Nations
has not adopted a resolution directly addressing gender-related killings.
According to the declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women,
violence against women "means any act of gender-based violence that
results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm
or suffering to women and girls, including threats of such acts, coercion or
arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private
life".2 This
definition fails to include explicitly violence that can lead to death and
consequently misses an important component of violence against women.