Submission to the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences: 25 years of the mandate

Prepared in response to the call for inputs issued by the Special Rapporteur to review the 25 years of the mandate and current challenges, this submission uses the principles identified by the Special Rapporteur to discuss the following challenges to ending violence against women and girls: the increasing attention and resources directed towards engaging men and boys and the consequent impact on feminist organising; racist, misogynist and xenophobic discourse that seeks to undermine human rights norms and standards on gender based violence and women’s and girls’ rights more broadly; and finally the urgent need to move beyond individualizing experiences of gender based violence towards a focus on structural violence condoned or perpetrated by states. These challenges all share common roots in patriarchal systems of family, community, culture, religion, education, economics, politics and law that are designed to resist women’s and girls’ assertions of their human rights to be free from violence. Elements of these topics have been considered within previous reports of the mandate, however, none have been explored in depth by the mandate or analysed to surface their commonalities which could inform a more holistic approach to ending violence against women and girls.  

The report of the Special Rapporteur, celebrating 25 years of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, was presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2019, and can be accessed at this page.