United Nations Commission on Human Rights
WILPF Statement on the 16 Days of Activism
Against Gender Violence
The
25th of November is the date of the International Day for the Elimination
of Violence Against Women. On that day the 15th annual 16 Days
of Activism Against Gender Violence start and continue until the
10th of December, the United Nations International Human Rights’
day. The observance began at the first Feminist Eucuentro for
Latin America and the Caribbean held in Bogota, Colombia, in 1981.
In 1999 the United Nations officially recognized the observance.
We are in the year of Beijing +10; 180 countries have now ratified the
1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW); and, we have just celebrated the 5th anniversary
of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace
and Security.
All this indicates that women’s rights should be respected. All
over the world violence against women is nevertheless increasing –
in families, in society and most of all during war and armed conflict.
Every day we get horrifying examples of that increase in violence:
- One out of three women have been beaten, sexually
abused or raped.
- Systematic rape, sexual violence and abuse documented
in Darfur, Sudan, is widespread.
- This year 314 women in El Salvador have been murdered.
- Every year 14,000 Russian women die as a result
of violence in the home.
- Every fifth day a Spanish woman is killed by her
partner.
- Every fourth minute a woman in the USA is raped.
- In fourteen countries a man can get mitigation
of his sentence or impunity if he perpetrates violence or kills a woman
in order to protect the so-called honour.
- According to law in nine countries a rapist gets
impunity if he marries his victim.
Violence against women in war areas has, according to UNDP, reached epidemic
heights. The common denominator for the 1990’s conflicts and the
conflicts in this millennium has been comprehensive sexual abuse, forced
pregnancy as a tool in ethnic genocide, kidnapping, intentional infection
with HIV/AIDS and trafficking in women and children for sexual purposes.
Change in the pattern of sex roles is one of the consequent conditions
in a country in conflict, war or under occupation. Violence and aggression
get integrated in everyday life. When killing becomes legitimate, it also
becomes legitimate to rape or buy and sell human bodies, and a systematic
brutalization of the whole society will occur. The brutalization and the
change in the pattern of sex roles will constitute numerous and grave
assaults on women who are abused by family members as well as by unknown
men, civilians as well as soldiers.
In Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom we have testimonies
from women in many countries in war, crises or conflict. And we know from
them that women’s conditions have deteriorated and their rights
are under pressure. Furthermore, the militarization of societies generates
violence against all people; violence against women is extensive and varied
in its manifestation. Everywhere women are working for respect of their
rights and for better conditions.
Five years ago the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1325 on Women,
Peace and Security. Here the Council focused on the impact of war
and conflict on women’s and girls’ lives. Furthermore it recognized
that the contributions of women in negotiation processes and decision
making are underestimated and not utilized, and it underlined that women
ought to be recognized as active and full parties.
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom calls on all
UN member states and all UN bodies to implement UN Security Council Resolution
1325 as one of the means to act against gender violence.
November 2005
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