2. Feminist and Activist Approaches to Human Rights

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ackerly Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Political History ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Moral Legitimacy ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores the theoretical and political history of human rights that emerges out of the struggles that have been waged by feminists and other non-elites. It first considers the bases for the moral legitimacy of human rights and challenges to those arguments before discussing three aspects of feminist approaches to human rights: their criticism of some aspects of the theory and practice of human rights, their rights claims, and their conceptual contributions to a theory of human rights. It then examines the ways in which feminists and other activists for marginalized groups have used human rights in their struggles and how such struggles have in turn shaped human rights theory. It also analyses theoretical and historical objections to the universality of human rights based on cultural relativism. Finally, it shows that women’s rights advocates want rights enjoyment and not merely entitlements.

Women’s Constitutional Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 176-212
Author(s):  
Berihun Adugna Gebeye
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Substantive Content ◽  
General Investigation ◽  
Standard Of Comparison ◽  
Design And Practice

This chapter explains how legal syncretism influences and manifests itself in the design and practice of constitutional rights—with a particular focus on women’s rights—in the constitutional systems of Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia. The chapter demonstrates how the interaction between the liberal and indigenous conceptions of rights in a constitutional space produces unique regimes of women’s rights in these countries. The chapter first presents a brief theory of women’s rights as a standard of comparison and evaluation; this is done through a more general investigation of women’s rights in international law. This is then followed by a more focused discussion of women’s constitutional rights in Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia. Such discussion explores the substantive content and the way in which women’s rights are constitutionalized, as well as their practical and judicial applications. The syncretic nature of women’s rights in these countries sheds some light on the importance of looking beyond the universalism versus cultural relativism debate when trying to enforce human rights in Africa.

Women's Rights, Human Rights and Domestic Violence in Vanuatu

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Jolly
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
The Individual

There has been much recent debate about women's rights and their relation to human rights. Debates about domestic violence in Vanuatu are situated in this global frame but also in a regional and historical context dominated by the relation between kastom (tradition) and Christianity. This article depicts the dynamics of a conference on Violence and the Family in Vanuatu held in Port Vila in 1994, in terms of the competing claims of universal human rights and cultural relativism. The allegedly western character of human rights which focus on the individual and civil and political rights is often contrasted with the non-western stress on collectivities and the rights to economic development and self-determination. These sorts of ideological oppositions in international politics reverberate in domestic politics as well, and especially in those which situate women and men as subjects in conflict, as they are in many domestic disputes.

Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shed Light

This volume reframes the debate around Islam and women’s rights within a broader comparative literature. It examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part I addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part II localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy, and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part I. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women’s rights vis-à-vis human rights to shed light on gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder over the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.

scholarly journals The Struggle Against Torture: Challenges, Assumptions and New Directions

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-333
Author(s):  
Tobias Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Current State ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Emerging Themes ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Abstract This short essay offers a broad and necessarily incomplete review of the current state of the human rights struggle against torture and ill-treatment. It sketches four widespread assumptions in that struggle: 1) that torture is an issue of detention and interrogation; 2) that political or security detainees are archetypal victims of torture; 3) that legal reform is one of the best ways to fight torture; and 4) that human rights monitoring helps to stamp out violence. These four assumptions have all played an important role in the history of the human rights fight against torture, but also resulted in limitations in terms of the interventions that are used, the forms of violence that human rights practitioners respond to, and the types of survivors they seek to protect. Taken together, these four assumptions have created challenges for the human rights community in confronting the multiple forms of torture rooted in the deep and widespread inequality experienced by many poor and marginalized groups. The essay ends by pointing to some emerging themes in the fight against torture, such as a focus on inequality, extra-custodial violence, and the role of corruption.

Human rights and women's rights

Midwifery ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights
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