Getting to the heart of violence

11 June 2009, 10:39AM

Women, such as this one in a Makoko slum area in Lagos, must often walk through unsafe areas to fetch water for their families. © Amnesty International.

In her latest thematic report to the Human Rights Council, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women Yakin Ertürk takes a look at how the current political economic order impacts on both the prevalence of violence against women across the globe, as well as any efforts to eliminate it.

The Special Rapporteur argues that the problem of violence against women can’t be disconnected from the underlying socioeconomic conditions that women all too often find themselves in, and that there needs to be a “transnational” response to end violence and fulfil women’s human rights “whether in good times or bad”.

Drawing on examples from around the world, Ertürk illustrates the direct connections between specific social and economic rights recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and guaranteed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (such as the right to adequate housing, water, education, health and decent work) and women’s vulnerability to violence, including how:

• A lack of adequate housing can trigger violence against women and vice versa. Internally displaced and refugee women, domestic workers, poor single mothers, and women victims of violence living in countries without safe shelters or affordable long term housing for abused women are especially at risk. Displaced women in Darfur, as example, have been found to be at constant risk of rape when they venture outside their camps to find firewood or food – as well as within the camps themselves.

• The task of collecting clean water for their families exposes many women to similar risks and challenges as that of providing fuel or food. Where access to clean water is lacking, women and girls often have to walk long distances to fetch water. This not only opens women up to risk, as the above example shows, but limits other, more empowering opportunities, such as attending school or participating in income-generating activities, which are known to lessen women’s vulnerability to violence. Equitable access to water can address some of the root causes of poverty and gender inequality that fuel violence against women.

• Large development projects may involve large-scale evictions of poor people from their homes and land in order to free up desired locations. The impact of these forced evictions, often by militia or armed forces such as in the case of Cambodia, is profoundly devastating for women and is linked to heightened rates of physical, psychological and economic violence at the hands of State authorities as well as community and family members before, during and after the evictions.

“Nowhere in the world do women share equal social and economic rights or equal access to productive resources.”

by Yakin Ertürk

• Violence, or fear of it, prevents many women from asking their partners to practice safe sex leading to higher HIV rates. The percentage of women living with HIV globally has continued to rise over the past decade. Many women also experience severe violence at the hands of their partners if they are found to have contracted HIV.

• The demand for women’s cheap and flexible labour under globalisation has led not only to women emigrating for employment in unregulated, informal and domestic sectors, but also to the trafficking of women and children for sexual and labour exploitation. Migrant workers and members of their families are some of the most vulnerable groups in any society, especially those whose status is irregular. The experience of some migrant workers in Australia is no exception.

Read the report

This latest report (and its recommendations to government), due to be discussed by the UN Human Rights Council in its 11th session (2-18 June 2009), follows from her earlier two, The due diligence standard as a tool for the elimination of violence against women and Intersections between culture and violence against women.

What governments can do

Governments rarely take socioeconomic factors into consideration when coming up with legislative or policy responses to violence against women. Any initiative to end violence against women must be integrated into the larger struggle for social and economic empowerment and equality - something Amnesty International is aiming for with its Demand Dignity campaign.

Share: What are these?

Features and analysis

Sorry, commenting is no longer available in this weblog entry.

Make an impact

Women in Papua New Guinea urgently need the Government to introduce a law against domestic violence and provide more safe houses for women and children fleeing violence.

Stay Informed

Sign up for email updates

Email address:

Subscribe using RSS

Get Involved

Kavira Muraulu is a farmer in the DR Congo who was bayoneted in the stomach after she complained about being raped by a soldier.

Violence against women has to end. Please give to Amnesty International so that we can continue to campaign for the rights of women.

• Join Amnesty International
• Act locally