The problem of gender-based violence in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights Case-Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Galina Nelaeva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Impact

The phenomenon of gender-based violence is far from novel, it has been actively debated in academic and human rights circles for several decades already. However, gender-based violence has only recently become a focus of attention in international inter-governmental organizations and international courts. In the field of international humanitarian law, the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda declared sexualized violence as part of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the early 2000s, and approximately at the same time international human rights bodies started to examine this problem as well. The UN CEDAW Committee began its first deliberations in accordance with Optional Protocol to the CEDAW Convention (1999), and the Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights joined in as an active participant in this global struggle for women’s rights, making an impact on domestic law-making and law enforcement, and setting an important example for human rights groups and political actors. By looking at some of the most important decisions of the IACtHR in the field of combatting gender-based violence, we seek to identify major problem areas and the impact these decisions had in the region.

scholarly journals THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN IN ARMED CONFLICT

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Aldytia Bunga
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Gender Relation ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Forced Prostitution ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Impact

<p><em>The vulnerable groups often become the victim of adverse party of armed conflict. Women is included in there. Women in armed conflict are affected directly or indirectly by the conflict, including gender based violence like rape, forced impregnation, or forced prostitution. In addition, armed conflict also affects the gender relation related to women, for example women become the breadwinner as the result of lost of husband due to the conflict. this research aimed to discuss on the impact of armed conflict on women, how international humanitarian law protects women in armed conflict and how the implementation of that protection.</em></p>

Trying Violations of Human Rights in International Criminal Tribunals

2021 ◽  
pp. 103-115
Author(s):  
Theodor Meron
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
The Other ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Geneva Conventions

This chapter details the ways in which international criminal tribunals such as the ICTY have contributed to human rights law and protections. In construing the material elements of crimes under international humanitarian law, international criminal tribunals have had recourse to human rights law and jurisprudence, thereby strengthening human rights law and opening new avenues for its penal enforcement. The beginnings of these developments can be traced, first, to the drafting of crimes against humanity clauses in the Nuremberg Charter and, second, to the drafting of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The tribunals have also made immense contributions to strengthening the proscriptions of rape as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal acts. With respect to persecution, the ICTY held that persecution is the gross or blatant denial, on discriminatory grounds, of a fundamental right, laid down in international customary or treaty law, reaching the same level of gravity as the other acts prohibited as crimes against humanity.

scholarly journals Human Rights Protection in UN Peace Operations: A Case Study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

2021 ◽  
pp. 2150003
Author(s):  
Masrur Mahmud Khan ◽  
Samwat Naiear Ahona ◽  
Subiggo Chakma
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Peace Operations ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Human Rights Protection ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Despite the presence of UN peace operations for more than two decades, the human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is still dire. This article illustrates the types of violations of human rights and hindrances to protect human rights in MONUSCO. Methodologically being a qualitative study, it is based on existing literature and key informant interviews. Killings of civilians, sexual and gender-based violence, child soldiers, war crimes and crimes against humanity are major types of human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The study argues that due to structural challenges, like the bureaucratic structure of MONUSCO, inadequacy of budget and juristic limitation of the Peacekeeping Force, and operational challenges, like challenges in the protection of civilians and UN personnel, the paucity of logistics and manpower and also gender-based violence by some UN personnel and peacekeepers in MONUSCO, the UN forces failed to maintain and defend human rights properly.

Women, human rights and international humanitarian law

1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (324) ◽  
pp. 421-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Gardam
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Optional Protocol ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Wide Range

The development in the last 50 years of the principles that comprise human rights law has had a major impact on international humanitarian law and indeed on international law generally. In more recent years, the movement for recognition of the equal rights of women has been exerting its own influence on human rights law and to some effect. In 1979, for example, the international community adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which 155 States are now party. Consideration is currently being given to the adoption of an Optional Protocol that will allow for individual and group complaints to be brought before the CEDAW Committee. Governmental and non-governmental organizations have increasingly focused on women's human rights. As a result, a wide range of studies, reports and recommendations on various aspects of the issue is available. The topic of women is thus firmly established on the international human rights agenda.

Introduction

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-36
Author(s):  
Susan Dewey ◽  
Tonia St. Germain
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Home Culture ◽  
Gender Oppression ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Extensive List

This special ASR forum, “The Case of Gender-Based Violence: Assessing the Impact of International Human Rights Rhetoric on African Lives,” grounds itself in the notion that gender relations (and, indeed, gendered social norms) can undergo significant transformation in zones of conflict or in other contexts of extreme socioeconomic and political instability. Individuals actively reconfigure moral landscapes of power and sexuality amidst the everyday chaos, violence, and deprivation that constitutes the experience of war for most people, thereby formulating new normative frame-works of appropriately gendered norms for social interaction and sexual expression. These norms, of course, are rather dramatically cross-cut, for all actors involved, by an extensive list of factors that include one's ethnolinguistic or religious affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and myriad other allegiances that are all too frequently brought to the fore by conflict or other forms of instability. War and instability, it seems, force individuals to think of themselves, and others, in ways that might not otherwise have seemed imaginable.The case studies in this issue are based upon research in Rwanda, Congo, Uganda, South Africa, and Liberia. One unifying theme is the frequency with which human rights rhetoric divorces conflict-related gender based violence from the peacetime normative framework. The authors illustrate the cultural restrictions and patriarchal oppression that encourage violence within different dimensions of the socioeconomic and political context (home, culture, political authority, economy, and military), and they analyze gender-based violence as a form of structural violence. Nonetheless, as Sharon Abramowitz and Mary Moran caution us, gender-based violence in conflict and postconflict zones is not simply an enhanced version of “traditional” gender oppression. We would be severely remiss, the authors remind us, to read conflict and crisis as culture.

Feminist and Human Rights Struggles in Peru

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascha Bueno-Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Decolonial Feminism

This book elucidates the tension between the promise of transitional justice and persistent social inequality and impunity. In 2001, following a generation of internal armed conflict and authoritarian rule, the Peruvian state created a Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC). This book places the TRC, feminist and human rights movements, and related non-governmental organizations within an international and historical context to expose the difficulties in addressing gender-based violence. Its innovative theoretical and methodological framework based on decolonial feminism and a critical engagement with intersectionality facilitates an in-depth examination of the Peruvian transitional justice process based on field studies and archival research. The book uncovers the colonial mappings and linear temporality underlying transitional justice efforts and illustrates why transitional justice mechanisms must reckon with the societal roots of atrocities, if they are to result in true and lasting social transformation.

First-Class Crimes, Second-Class Justice: Cumulative Charges for Gender-Based Crimes at the International Criminal Court

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-541 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Green
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

AbstractWhile sexual and gender-based violence crimes are now prosecutable as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court recently declined to confirm cumulative charges for sexual and gender-based violence in Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo. Born out of the historical tendency of international criminal tribunals to treat rape and sexual violence as secondary crimes, this paper argues that the International Criminal Court is far from achieving true gender justice, or from serving as a deterrent against sexual and gender-based violence crimes. This paper also argues that the ICC's failure in this regard risks undermining the very legitimacy of the Court.

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AMONGST WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES: A CASE STUDY OF MWENEZI DISTRICT, ZIMBABWE

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tafadzwa Rugoho ◽  
France Maphosa
Keyword(s):  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Community Perceptions ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Women With Disabilities ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
Disabled Women ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Impact

This article is based on a study of gender-based violence against women with disabilities. The study sought to examine the factors that make such women vulnerable, to investigate the community’s responses to gender-based violence against women with disabilities, and to determine the impact of gender-based violence on the wellbeing and health of women with disabilities. The study adopted a qualitative research design so as to arrive at an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon under study. The study sample consisted of 48 disabled women living in marital or common law unions, selected using purposive sampling. Of the 48 women in the sample, 16 were visually impaired while the remaining 32 had other physical disabilities. Focus group discussions were used for data collection. The data were analysed using the thematic approach. The finding was that women with disabilities also experience gender-based violence. The study makes recommendations whose thrust is to change community perceptions on disability as the only guarantee towards eradicating gender-based violence against women with disabilities.

scholarly journals The Impact of COVID-19 Related Lockdown on the Prevalence of Spousal Violence Against Women in Kurdistan Region of Iraq

2021 ◽  
pp. 088626052199792
Author(s):  
Kazhan I. Mahmood ◽  
Sherzad A. Shabu ◽  
Karwan M. M-Amen ◽  
Salar S. Hussain ◽  
Diana A. Kako ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Emotional Abuse ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Spousal Violence ◽  
Kurdistan Region ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Effective Prevention ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Impact

There is increasing concern about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown’s social and economic consequences on gender-based violence. This study aimed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender-based violence by comparing the prevalence of spousal violence against women before and during the COVID-19 related lockdown periods. This study was conducted in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq using a self-administered online questionnaire survey after the COVID-19 lockdown period in June 2020. Data were collected from a sample of 346 married women about the occurrence, frequency, and forms of spousal violence before and during the lockdown period. Significant increases in violence were observed from the pre-lockdown period to the lockdown period for any violence (32.1% to 38.7%, p = .001), emotional abuse (29.5% to 35.0%, p = .005), and physical violence (12.7% to 17.6%, p = .002). Regarding emotional abuse, humiliation (24.6% to 28.3%, p = .041) and scaring or intimidation (14.2% to 21.4%, p < .001) significantly increased during the lockdown. For physical violence, twisting the arm or pulling hair (9.0% to 13.0%, p = .004) and hitting (5.2% to 9.2%, p = .003) significantly increased during the lockdown. Forcing to have sexual intercourse also significantly increased during lockdown (6.6% to 9.5%., p = .021). The concerned authorities and women’s rights organizations should collaborate to enhance the prevention of violence against women. An effective prevention strategy should emphasize recognizing and acknowledging the extent of the problem, raising awareness about the problem and the available resources to address it, and ensuring social and economic stability. Lessons learned about the increased prevalence of spousal violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to adopt appropriate strategies to prevent and address it will be valuable for similar future crises.

Women Garment Workers Face Huge Inequities in Global Supply Chain Factories Made Worse by COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 104829112110116
Author(s):  
Garrett D. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Women Workers ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Professional Associations ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Garment Workers ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Structural Inequities ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The Impact

Women make up the large majority of workers in global supply chains, especially factories in the apparel supply chain. These workers face significant inequalities in wages, workplace hazards, and a special burden of gender-based violence and harassment. These “normal” conditions have been compounded by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated long-standing structural inequities. Decades of well-financed “corporate social responsibility” programs have failed because they do not address the underlying causes of illegal and abusive working conditions. New initiatives in the past half-decade offer promise in putting the needs and rights of workers front and center. Occupational health and safety professionals can assist in the global effort to improve working and social conditions, and respect for the rights and dignity of women workers, through advocacy and action on the job, in their professional associations, and in society at large.

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