All Publications

2012
Manjoo R. Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences - Addendum - Mission to Jordan. United Nations OHCHR; 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx  

In the link, find the report in the section: 2012, 20th Session HRC; Report: A/HRC/20/16/Add.1

This report contains the findings of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, following her visit to Jordan from 11 to 24 November 2011.

In the report, the Special Rapporteur examines holistically the equality and non-discrimination rights of women, intimate partner violence, gender-motivated killings of women, and violence against migrant and refugee women.

She also discusses the State’s response to prevent such violence, to protect and provide remedies to women who have been subjected to such violence, and to prosecute and punish the perpetrators. 

European Court – New Admissibility Criterion. European Court of Human Rights. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=caselaw/analysis&c=#n1347459030234_pointer

The purpose of the current overview is to set out the case-law principles for the new admissibility criterion under Article 35 § 3 (b), as developed by the Court during the first two years of its operation. It is to be recalled that application of the criterion was reserved exclusively to Chambers and the Grand Chamber1 from 1 June 2010 until 31 May 2012. In accordance with Article 20 of Protocol No. 14, the new provision began to apply to all applications pending before the Court, except those declared admissible.

 

European Court – References to Inter-American Court Case Law. European Court of Human Rights. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Understanding and addressing violence against women: Intimate partner violence. WHO; 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/violence/vaw_series/en/

Intimate partner violence is one of the most common forms of violence against women and includes physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and controlling behaviours by an intimate partner. Intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs in all settings and among all socioeconomic, religious and cultural groups. The overwhelming global burden of IPV is borne by women. Although women can be violent in relationships with men, often in self-defense, and violence sometimes occurs in same-sex partnerships, the most common perpetrators of violence against women are male intimate partners or ex-partners. By contrast, men are far more likely to experience violent acts by strangers or acquaintances than by someone close to them. 

Handbook for Legislation on Violence against Women. United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women; 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2012/12/handbook-...

The Handbook serves as a useful tool in supporting efforts to provide justice, support, protection and remedies to victims and to hold perpetrators accountable.

The Handbook first outlines the international and regional legal and policy frameworks which mandate States to enact and implement comprehensive and effective laws to address violence against women. It then presents a model framework for legislation on violence against women, divided into fourteen chapters. Finally, the Handbook provides users with a checklist of considerations to be kept in mind when drafting legislation on violence against women.

This Handbook intends to provide all stakeholders with detailed guidance to support the adoption and effective implementation of legislation which prevents violence against women, punishes perpetrators, and ensures the rights of survivors everywhere.

AICHR: What You Need To Know. Association of South East Asian Nations. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://aichr.org/documents/

For over four decades since its establishment, ASEAN as an intergovernmental organization has always endeavored towards improving the lives of the peoples in the region, particularly in the economic, political security and socio-cultural aspects. To further ensure the wellbeing of the ASEAN people, ASEAN decided to have its own regional human rights body, which reflects ASEAN's strong commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Human rights are an integral part of the ASEAN Community and are reflected in both the ASEAN Charter (Article 1.7, 2.2.i, and 14), and the ASEAN Political-Security Blueprint (Section A. 1.5). The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) were established in 2009 and 2010 respectively. The establishment of the AICHR presents to the region and the global community ASEAN's strong commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The AICHR will set the tone for cooperation in human rights promotion and protection in ASEAN. The AICHR is the overarching body with a cross-cutting mandate that handles matters related to human rights cooperation with other ASEAN Bodies, external partners and stakeholders. 

 

Yet how many people within the ASEAN region know of the AICHR's existence? And how many are aware of how the AICHR came about and what mandate it holds? This booklet is intended to provide quick facts regarding the AICHR and the development of human rights in the ASEAN region. 

ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://aichr.org/documents/

The ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening Social Protection was adopted at the 23rd ASEAN Summit in 2013. The ASEAN Member States had declared to enforce adequate social protection measures, expand social insurance to the informal sector and social assistance to the unemployed and vulnerable groups.

Guidelines on the Operations of AICHR. Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://aichr.org/documents/

As the overarching institution responsible for the promotion and protection of Human Rights in ASEAN, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter shall be referred to as “the AICHR”) will discharge its duties pursuant to Article 14 of the ASEAN Charter and the AICHR’s Terms of Reference (TOR). The operations of the AICHR shall be conducted in accordance to the following Guidelines:

Phnom Penh Statement on the Adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD). Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://asean.org/2012/11/?cat=21

 

WE, the Heads of State/Government of the Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), on the occasion of the 21st ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia;

REAFFIRMING ASEAN’s commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as the purposes and the principles as enshrined in the ASEAN Charter, including the principles of democracy, rule of law and good governance;

REITERATING ASEAN and its Member States’ commitment to the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and other international human rights instruments, to which ASEAN Member States are parties as well as to relevant ASEAN declarations and instruments pertaining to human rights;

Duramy BF. Judicial Developments in the Application of International Law to Domestic Violence. American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy and the Law. 2012;21 (2) :413-436. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/jgspl/vol21/iss2/6/

This Article explains the development of a new judicial trend towards states' positive obligation to protect victims of domestic abuse. This Article also investigates the standard of due diligence for state liability, and suggests universal criteria according to which international law should apply to domestic violence as a human rights violation.

The Istanbul Convention and the CEDAW framework: A comparison of measures to prevent and combat violence against women. Council of Europe; 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.coe.int/en/web/genderequality/violence-against-women

Located under "Information About the Instanbul Convention."

 

The Istanbul Convention codifies established standards, jurisprudence and developments at international level, as well as best practice at national level, thereby lending them more weight and ensuring their wider application. Drawing in particular on the framework of measures of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and case law developed by the CEDAW Committee, it is firmly based on the premise that violence against women cannot be eradicated without investing in gender equality and that in turn, only real gender equality and a change in attitudes can truly prevent such violence.

The following tables describe the manner in which the Istanbul Convention builds on the three sources that constitute the CEDAW framework: the Convention, General Recommendations and case law. The tables also show how the Istanbul Convention complements these instruments by establishing a more detailed catalogue of legally-binding obligations to prevent and respond to violence against women. The tables do not however contain a detailed explanation of the extensive list of obligations under the Istanbul Convention. 

Still a Long Way to Go: Implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan. UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://unhcr.org.ua/attachments/article/818/UNAMA%20report_women%20AFG_2...

"Implementation of the Elimination of Violence against Women law in Afghanistan, December 2012"

Periodic evaluation of progress on implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women, reinforced in the June 2012 Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework, is imperative in view of the widespread occurrence of violence against women in Afghanistan and resistance to women’s rights at various levels of Afghan society. Harmful practices and violence against women in Afghanistan have long prevented women from participating in public life and blocked their voices from being heard in decision-making and political forums. Progress in implementing the EVAW law can contribute to enabling women to play a meaningful and crucial role in the country’s current peace and reconciliation processes. The United Nations has repeatedly stressed the imperative of ensuring equal participation of women and their full involvement in all efforts to achieve durable peace and security, and the need to increase women’s role in decision-making and in conflict prevention and resolution.

This report examines implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW law) by judicial and law enforcement officials for the period October 2011 to September 2012 and identifies the many challenges Afghan women still face in accessing justice. The analysis is based on information gathered from 22 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and highlights the reporting, registration and judicial process followed under the EVAW law and the Penal Code by the Afghan National Police (ANP), prosecutor’s offices and primary courts in a representative sample of violence against women incidents. From 16 provinces, UNAMA gathered and analyzed more detailed data from police, prosecutors and courts on cases processed using the EVAW law. The report also highlights the crucial role and work of provincial departments of women’s affairs and commissions on elimination of violence against women. This report updates earlier findings on the law’s implementation in UNAMA’s November 2011 report A Long Way to Go: Implementation of the Elimination of Violence against Women Law in Afghanistan.

 

Second Hemispheric Report on the Implementation of the Belem do Para Convention. Organization of American States. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.oas.org/en/mesecvi/hemisphericreports.asp

Second Hemispheric Report on on the Implementation of the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI, 2012)

The Second Hemispheric Report reviews the progress made by the States Party in their implementation of the Belém do Pará Convention, as well as the significant challenges that remain in the region in terms of a timely, appropriate and effective response to acts of violence against women, from a perspective of human rights.

The Report consolidates the results and recommendations from the 28 national reports presented to the MESECVI during the Second Multilaterial Evaluation Round, and offers a comparative overview of the progress made between the First and Second Rounds.

WHO Intimate Partner Violence Overview. WHO. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/rhr12_36/en/

WHO and PAHO have developed a series of information sheets on violence against women that summarizes what is known about the prevalence, patterns, consequences, risk factors and strategies to address the different forms of VAW. This series is for programme managers, practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and others working in a wide range of sectors and in every country.

ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 2012. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.asean.org/storage/images/ASEAN_RTK_2014/6_AHRD_Booklet.pdf

WE, the Heads of State/Government of the Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (hereinafter referred to as "ASEAN"), namely Brunei Darussalam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Republic of Indonesia, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the Republic of the Philippines, the Republic of Singapore, the Kingdom of Thailand and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, on the occasion of the 21st ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

REAFFIRMING our adherence to the purposes and principles of ASEAN as enshrined in the ASEAN Charter, in particular the respect for and promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance;

REAFFIRMING FURTHER our commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations, the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and other international human rights instruments to which ASEAN Member States are parties;

REAFFIRMING ALSO the importance of ASEAN’s efforts in promoting human rights, including the Declaration of the Advancement of Women in the ASEAN Region and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the ASEAN Region;

CONVINCED that this Declaration will help establish a framework for human rights cooperation in the region and contribute to the ASEAN community building process.

2011
Arfaoui DK. Women on the Move for Gender Equality in the Maghreb. Feminisms, Democritization, and Radical Democracy . 2011 :85-115.Abstract

This research paper intends to analyze the impact on their society at large of democratization of women’s roles at home and at the workplace. Because it is important to know the past in order to understand the present, the status of women in the Maghreb countries in the pre-independence era will be presented. But the major part of the research will begin in the 1980s with the early autonomous feminist wave and continues until the present: the first decade of the 2000s.

Several international instruments have provided for women’s equality, but it was at the 1993 Vienna Conference that women’s rights became an integral part of human rights, highlighting the issue of violence against women. However, in spite of progress since then, in particular during the last few decades, women are still far from having reached the equality they have been striving for. Increased information being transmitted via the media, but also via the work done by female activists, together with increased education have led to sweeping social changes, creating awareness among women. As a result, women are increasingly breaking the taboos that used to keep them silent and submissive and are asking for help at the centers ready to aid them find solutions to their problems of violence.

women_on_the_move_-_maghreb.pdf
Roy D. An Introduction to Forced Marriage in the South Asian Community in the United States. manavi. 2011;(9). Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://preventforcedmarriage.org/resources/an-introduction-to-forced-mar...

The practice of Forced Marriage, where one or both persons involved are coerced through pressure or abuse to consent to a marriage against their will, has been widely addressed in places such as the United Kingdom, but it has only recently begun to enter the framework of women’s rights advocacy work here in the United States. I am an Advocate at Manavi, a New Jersey-based South Asian1 women’s rights organization (SAWO) who has been trained on the issue of forced marriage in the UK. In this position, I have observed that in the US we are only beginning to understand what this practice is, what populations it affects, how prevalent it is and how we can effectively respond to this form of violence against women and girls so as to ensure the safety and well-being of those subjected to it. In June 2010, for the purposes of this paper, I conducted a 10-question web-based survey amongst frontline advocates at 25 SAWOs across the US. The responses I received from the survey, in addition to the cases emerging through Manavi’s advocacy work, con rms that forced marriages are happening in South Asian communities in the US. As frontline, grassroots advocates and activists in the South Asian community, we have witnessed a recent increase in reported cases even though this harmful traditional practice has been happening for many years. 

Forced Marriage in Immigrant Communities in the United States . Tahirih Justice Center; 2011. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.tahirih.org/pubs/forced-marriage-in-immigrant-communities-in-...

Forced marriage is a serious problem in the United States today, with as many as 3,000 known and suspected cases identified in just two years by respondents of Tahirih Justice Center survey. The fact that potentially thousands of young women and girls from immigrant communities may face forced marriages each year in the United States is alarming and demands attention. 

Sullivan CM. Evaluating domestic violence support service programs: Waste of time, necessary evil, or opportunity for growth?. Aggression and Violent Behavior . 2011;16 (4) :354-360. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178911000607

*The full article is available through this link. This article may be available free of charge to those with university credentials.

More and more funders of non-profit organizations are mandating that grantees engage in outcome evaluation. Given that this mandate is rarely accompanied by additional funding to devote to such efforts, as well as the limited skills many staff have in conducting outcome evaluation, this has been a significant hardship for human service programs. Domestic violence victim service programs have additional barriers to evaluating service effectiveness, including: (1) each survivor1 comes to the program with different needs and life circumstances; (2) there is debate about which ‘outcomes’ are appropriate for these programs to accomplish; (3) many service clients are anonymous or engage in very short-term services; and (4) surveying survivors can compromise their safety or comfort. Some programs, therefore, resist evaluating their services (which can compromise their funding) while others engage in evaluations that can compromise their integrity or values. Others, however, see outcome evaluation as an opportunity for growth and improvement. Evidence is provided that, if done appropriately and sensitively, outcome evaluation can be incorporated into ongoing staff activities, can provide evidence for program effectiveness, and can improve services for survivors of intimate partner abuse.

Teitelman A, Ratcliffe SJ, Sullivan CM, McDonald CC, Brawner BM. Relationships Between Physical and Non-Physical Forms of Intimate Partner Violence and Depression among Urban Minority Adolescent Females. Child and Adolescent Mental Health. 2011;16 (2) :92-100. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3100197/

*The full article is available through this link. This article may be available free of charge to those with university credentials.

Background

Little is known about intimate partner violence (IPV) and depression among low income, urban African American and Hispanic adolescent females.

Method

Interviews with 102 urban African American and Hispanic adolescent females examined physical abuse, emotional/verbal abuse, and threats, and their unique and combined associations with depression.

Results

One-quarter of the sample experienced all three types of abuse. Non-physical forms of IPV were significantly associated with depression.

Conclusions

Some urban adolescent females from lower income households experience high rates of IPV. Physical and non-physical forms of IPV are important in understanding and responding to depression in this population.

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