Ending Violence Against Women: from words to action
Friday 16th March 2007

Violence against Women (VAW) is a form of discrimination and a violation of human rights. It causes untold misery, cutting short lives and leaving countless women living in pain and fear in every country in the world. It harms families across the generations, impoverishes communities and reinforces other forms of violence throughout societies. VAW stops them from fulfilling their potential, restricts economic growth and undermines development. The scope and extent of VAW are a reflection of the degree and persistence of discrimination that women continue to face. It can only be eliminated, therefore, by addressing discrimination, promoting, human rights are fulfilled.

All of humanity would benefit from an end to this violence, and there has been considerable progress in creating the international framework for achieving this. However, new forms of violence have emerged and in some countries, advances towards equality and freedom from violence previously made by women have been eroded or are under threat.  The continued prevalence of VAW is testimony to the fact that States have yet to tackle it with the necessary political commitment, visibility and resources.

VAW is neither unchanging nor inevitable and could be radically reduced, and eventually eliminated, with the necessary political will and resources.

This study identifies ways to close the gap between States’ obligations under international norms, standards and policies and their inadequate and inconsistent implementation at the national level. It calls for efforts to eradicate VAW to become a higher priority at the local, national and international level.

Overview

Causes and risk factors

The roots of VAW lie in:

- Unequal power relations between men and women

- Low levels of participation in the decision making processes in the public and private spheres.

- Patriarchal values and norms

- Discriminatory cultural practices

- Economic inequalities which serve to deny women’s human right: (unequal access to schools, high illiteracy and poverty levels)

- Harmful traditional practices

The different manifestations of such VAW are shaped by factors such as ethnicity, class, age, disability, nationality and religion.

Forms and consequences

There are many different forms of VAW – physical, sexual, psychological and economic.

Women are subjected to violence in a wide range of settings, including the family, the school, the community and the work place it cuts across both the public and the private spheres.

Some increase in importance while others diminish as societies undergo demographic changes, economic restructuring and social and cultural shifts.

For example, new technologies may generate new forms of VAW, such as internet or mobile telephone stalking.

Some forms, such as international trafficking and VAW include migram: workers cross national boundaries.

Women in custody and armed conflict are more likely to face violence.

Violence constitutes a continuum across the lifespan of women from before birth (down sizing the age of FGM/cutting) to old age.

The most common form of VAW experienced by women globally is intimate partner violence (domestic violence) sometimes leading to death or permanent disability.

Also widespread are harmful traditional practices, including early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation/cutting.

Other forms are of a sexual nature-rape, incest or sexual harassment trafficking in women is receiving increasing attention.

There is also psychological violence-verbal abuse or denial of their basic human rights.

VAW perpetrated by the State, through its agents, through omission, or through lack of public policy, spans all types of physical, sexual and psychological violence. It can constitute torture.

The high incidence of VAW has far-reaching consequences for women, their children, and society as a whole.

Women, who experience violence, suffer a range of health problems, and their ability to earn a living and to participate in public life is diminished.

Their children are significantly most at risk of health problems, poor school performance and behavioral disturbances.

VAW women, their families, communities and nations. It lowers economic production, drains resources from public services and employers, and reduces human capital formation.

While even the most comprehensive surveys to date underestimate the costs, they all show that the failure to address VAW has serious economic consequences.

The knowledge base

- There is compelling evidence that VAW is sever and pervasive throughout the world:

- Many countries including The Gambia lack reliable data and much of the existing information cannot be meaningfully compared. Few countries carry out regular data collection, which would allow changes over time to be measured.

- Information is urgently needed on how various forms of VAW affect different groups of women;

- This requires data that has been disaggregated by gender according to factors such as age and ethnicity.

- Little information is available to assess the measures taken to combat VAW and to evaluate their impact.

- Ensuring adequate date collection is part of every State’s obligation to address VAW, but inadequate data does not diminish State responsibility for preventing and eliminating VAW.

- A set of international indicators on VAW should be established, based on widely available and credible data collected at the national level, using comparable methods to define and measure VAW.

State responsibility

- States have concrete and clear obligations to address VAW, whether committed by state agents or by non-state actors.

- States are accountable to women themselves, to all their citizens and to the

- International community

- States have a duty to prevent acts of VAW; to investigate such acts when they occur and prosecute and punish perpetrators; and to provide redress and relief to the victims.

- While differing circumstances and constrains require different types of action to be taken by the State, they do not excuse State inaction.

- When the State fails to hold the perpetrators of VAW accountable, this not only encourages further abuses, it also gives the message that VAW is acceptable or normal.

- The result of such impunity is not only denial of justice to the individual victims/survivors, but also reinforcement of prevailing inequalities that affect other women and girls as well.

Civil Society Responsibility

- To create awareness of the extent of VAW

- To inform and educate the public about the existence of laws that address VAW

- To provide legal aid

-  To provide support-financial, moral, physical and medical to victims/survivors of VAW

- To advocate for the enforcement of laws where they exist and where they do not exist and where they do not exist for the establishment of appropriate legislation. The Women’s Bill is a good example

To implement BCC so that the culture of silence is broken. This is the biggest aid to impunity.