All Publications

2001
Bayefsky A. The UN Human Rights Treaty System: Universality at the Crossroads.; 2001. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.bayefsky.com/tree.php/id/9250

The post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was constituted decades after most of the human rights treaties were adopted. Treaty body after treaty body was created, without a relationship to a High Commissioner, and without a relationship to each other. The result has been a burgeoning reporting burden, duplication of procedures, little effort to synchronize substantive outcomes, and rudimentary follow-up processes and responsibilities. In the meantime, treaty body members have struggled to preserve their independent expert status in a highly politicized UN environment, which has populated their numbers with many government surrogates and grossly underfinanced their work.

The reforms envisaged in this Report have assumed that improvements not requiring formal amendment will be more easily accomplished. Hence, the recommendations generally assume a six treaty body regime, and focus primarily on offering concrete suggestions for improvements in working methods of the treaty bodies and procedures at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The proposals for bolstering national level partnerships are also made in the context of the current conditions of overlap and a multiplicity of treaty bodies. Follow-up is the key missing component of the implementation regime, and therefore recommendations in this context are developed at some length. While one major reform requiring amendment is ultimately recommended, most of the specific recommendations concerning working methods and OHCHR processes remain relevant to a reorganized treaty regime. 

Violence in the Americas: A Regional Analysis. Organization of American States. 2001. Publisher's VersionAbstract

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

Document can be located at the bottom of the web page

As a legally binding instrument, the Convention is unique in that it clearly delineates the state’s obligations to protect women’s right to a life without violence. Article 5 of the Convention states that:

Every woman is entitled to the free and full exercise of her civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, and may rely on the full protection of those rights as embodied in regional and international instruments on human rights. The States Parties recognize that violence against women prevents and nullifies the exercise of these rights.

Article 7 of the Convention articulates the obligations of States Parties with respect to their role in the protection of women’s right to a life without violence. Specific obligations are listed that flow from the States Parties’ formal undertakings to refrain from committing acts of violence against women; demonstrate due diligence in preventing, investigating, and punishing violence against women; reform existing laws, policies, and administrative practices contributing to violence against women; and ensure that women victims have access to restitution, reparations, and other forms of just and effective remedies. Article 8 of the Convention also specifies that a number of other programs and measures must be adopted to promote public education and awareness, to mobilize communities in the fight against violence against women, and to offer specialized services and assistance to women victims.

The current review focuses on the implementation of the measures and dispositions described in articles 7 and 8 of the Convention. It also considers the efforts that are being deployed, as required by Article 9 of the Convention, to take special account of the vulnerability of women to violence by reason of their age, race, ethnic background, status as immigrants, socioeconomic position, or disabilities, among other factors.

Steinitz M. The Role of International Law in the Struggle against Sex-based and Gender-based Violence against Refugee Women. Submitted to The International Rescue Committee and The Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium; 2001. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://reliefweb.int/report/world/role-international-law-struggle-agains...

This document introduces international law and its uses in the prevention of sex-based and gender-based violence against refugee women. For this purpose, it includes discussions on the following: 

- What is international law and which are its sources? 
- Is international law binding? 
- What international legal bodies exist? 
- What constitutes violence against women? 
- What are the primary legal documents securing the rights of refugee women? 
- Other governmental and non-governmental organizations dealing with refugee women

2000
Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) - Women in Armed Conflict. United Nations Security Council. 2000. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.un.org/en/sc/documents/resolutions/2000.shtml

S/RES/1325 (2000)

The Security Council adopted resolution (S/RES/1325) on women and peace and security on 31 October 2000. The resolution reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security. Resolution 1325 urges all actors to increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts. It also calls on all parties to conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse, in situations of armed conflict. The resolution provides a number of important operational mandates, with implications for Member States and the entities of the United Nations system.

Shrader E, Sagot M. Domestic Violence: Women's Way Out. Pan American Health Organization; 2000. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www1.paho.org/english/hdp/hdw/womenswayout.htm

The Regional Program on Women, Health, and Development (HDW) of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), with support from Norway and Sweden coordinated the development of the research protocol Domestic Violence: Women's Way Out, in the framework of the HDW Program's subregional project Strengthening and Organization of Women and Coordinated Action between the State and Civil Society at the Local Level to Prevent and Address Family Violence.

Biketawa Declaration. Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. 2000. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.forumsec.org/pages.cfm/political-governance-security/biketawa...

The Biketawa Declaration (2000) outlines guiding principles for good governance and courses of action for a regional response to crises in the region. 

The Biketawa Declaration also commits Forum members to some key fundamental values including, among others, a “belief in the liberty of the individual under the law, in equal rights for all citizens regardless of gender, race, colour, creed or political belief” and to “upholding democratic processes and institutions which reflect national and local circumstances, including the peaceful transfer of power”.

The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI, 2003) and the Pacific Regional Assistance to Nauru (PRAN, 2004) are key Pacific Island Forum initiatives sponsored under the auspices of the Biketawa Declaration.

The most recent use of the Biketawa Declaration was on 2nd May 2009, when the Leaders’ Port Moresby Decisions automatically came into force with the imposition of targeted measures against the Fiji military regime.

Quantitative Research Findings on Rape in South Africa. Statistics South Africa; 2000. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=1854&PPN=Rape

This study provides an overview of available literature on the prevalence and incidence of rape in South Africa, the response of the criminal justice system to such crimes and the characteristics of those who commit rape. There are indeed various studies of rape in South Africa from which rape statistics may be extracted, but none of these studies were specifically designed to measure the prevalence and/or incidence of this crime. These studies, although approached from different perspectives and using diverse methods, come up with roughly similar patterns or trends as summarised below. Prevalence refers to how many cases there are, altogether, at a given point in time, for example, how many people there are in any country on the day of a population census. Incidence, on the other hand,refers to the number of cases over a specified time period, for example, the number of children per 100 000 of the population thatwere born in a given year.

1999
Sullivan CM, Bybee DI. Reducing violence using community-based advocacy for women with abusive partners. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1999;67 (1) :43-53. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10028208

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

An intensive community-based advocacy intervention was designed and evaluated by randomly assigning 278 battered women to an experimental or control condition. Participants were interviewed 6 times over a period of 2 years. Retention rate averaged 95% over the 2 years. The 10-week postshelter intervention involved providing trained advocates to work 1-on-1 with women, helping generate and access the community resources they needed to reduce their risk of future violence from their abusive partners. Women who worked with advocates experienced less violence over time, reported higher quality of life and social support, and had less difficulty obtaining community resources. More than twice as many women receiving advocacy services experienced no violence across the 2 years postintervention compared with women who did not receive such services.

Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 1999. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/OPCEDAW.aspx

In a landmark decision for women, the General Assembly, acting without a vote, adopted on 6 October 1999 a 21-article Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women and called on all States parties to the Convention to become party to the new instrument as soon as possible. 

By ratifying the Optional Protocol, a State recognizes the competence of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women -- the body that monitors States parties' compliance with the Convention -- to receive and consider complaints from individuals or groups within its jurisdiction.

The Protocol contains two procedures: (1) A communications procedure allows individual women, or groups of women, to submit claims of violations of rights protected under the Convention to the Committee. The Protocol establishes that in order for individual communications to be admitted for consideration by the Committee, a number of criteria must be met, including those domestic remedies must have been exhausted. (2) The Protocol also creates an inquiry procedure enabling the Committee to initiate inquiries into situations of grave or systematic violations of women’s rights. In either case, States must be party to the Convention and the Protocol. The Protocol includes an "opt-out clause", allowing States upon ratification or accession to declare that they do not accept the inquiry procedure. Article 17 of the Protocol explicitly provides that no reservations may be entered to its terms.

The Optional Protocol entered into force on 22 December 2000, following the ratification of the tenth State party to the Convention. The entry into force of the Optional Protocol puts it on an equal footing with International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention against Torture and other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which all have communications procedures. The inquiry procedure is the equivalent of that under the Convention against Torture.

1998
Sutherland C, Sullivan CM, Bybee DI. The long-term effects of battering on women's health. Women's Health. 1998;4 (1) :41-70. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9520606

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

We examined the effects of intimate violence on the physical and psychological health of women over time. Changes in levels of physical and psychological abuse, injuries, physical health symptoms, anxiety, and depression were assessed three times: immediately after exit from a domestic violence program and at 81/2- and 141/2-month follow-ups. Analyses showed a significant decline in abuse, physical health symptoms, anxiety, and depression over time. Longitudinal structural equation modeling demonstrated that ongoing abuse was significantly related to increased physical and psychological health problems from one time period to the next, even when prior levels of physical and psychological health were controlled. Within each time interval, the effects of abuse on physical symptoms appeared to be mediated through anxiety and depression; although this relationship was replicated at several time points, the mediation was not verified across time, probably because measurement intervals were too long to reflect the underlying causal sequence. Although injuries were the direct result of abuse, injuries showed no significant effect on physical symptoms, anxiety, or depression. Implications for intervention and future research are discussed.

Fleury RE, Sullivan CM, Bybee DI, Davidson WS. "Why don't they just call the cops?": Reasons for differential police contact among women with abusive partners. Violence and Victims. 1998;13 (4) :333-346. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10328442

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

Incidents of domestic violence are frequently not reported to police (e.g., Johnson, 1990; Langan & Innes, 1986; Roy, 1977), and people commonly assume that women's reasons for not calling about violence by a current or former partner are intrapersonal (e.g., shame, embarrassment, love). However, few researchers have asked battered women themselves about the frequency of their police contacts and their reasons for not calling the police. In this study, participants were recruited from a battered women's shelter and asked about their experiences with the police over the prior 6 months. Two thirds of the sample had had contact with the police during that time, but most did not have as much contact with the police as they had needed. Women gave multiple reasons for not calling the police; these reasons frequently included situational barriers, such as being physically prevented from using the telephone and/or being threatened with more violence. Only 3% of the sample reported that shame, embarrassment, or love were their sole reasons for not calling the police. Underreporting was related to previous (negative) experience with the police, as well as to the level of violence experienced. The practical implications of these findings are discussed.

1995
Eby KK, Cambell JC, Sullivan CM. Health effects of experiences of sexual violence for women with abusive partners. Health Care Women International. 1995;16 (6) :563-576. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8707690

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

We assessed the incidence of sexual violence, physical violence, physical health symptoms, gynecological symptoms, and risk behaviors for contracting an STD or HIV infection in women who had used a shelter for women with abusive partners. In addition, we investigated the relationships between sexual violence and the frequency of physical health symptoms, including specific gynecological symptoms. Results indicated that one fourth of the women interviewed had experienced sexual violence and nearly two thirds of the women had experienced physical violence in the past 6 months. The incidence of physical health symptoms, gynecological symptoms, and risk behaviors for exposure to STDs and HIV infection are presented. The correlations among sexual violence, physical violence, and experiences of physical health symptoms are also reported. This study is particularly valuable because previous research has not documented the relationship between sexual violence and physical health symptoms.

Campbell R, Sullivan CM, Davidson WS. Women Who Use Domestic Violence Shelters:Changes in Depression Over Time. Psychology of Women Quarterly. 1995;19 (2) :237-255. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/19/2/237

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

This study examined the levels of depression reported by women who had used a domestic violence shelter. Depressive symptoms were assessed three times: immediately after shelter exit, 10 weeks thereafter, and 6 months later. Whereas 83% of the women reported at least mild depression on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale upon shelter exit, only 58% were depressed 10 weeks later. This did not change at the 6-month follow-up. An ecological, longitudinal model was evaluated to predict battered women's depression 8 1/2 months postshelter exit. Results of hierarchical regression analyses suggested that, after controlling for previous levels of depression, the women's feelings of powerlessness, experience of abuse, and decreased social support contributed to their depression symptoms. The women's scores on these three variables (feelings of powerlessness, abuse, and social support) at 10 weeks postshelter exit and at 6-month follow-up predicted depression at 6 months. Thus, there were both predictive and concurrent effects for these constructs. Implications for clinical and community interventions are discussed.

Etienne M. Addressing Gender-Based Violence in an International Context. Harvard Women's Law Journal. 1995;18 :139. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=664530

This Article, exploratory in nature, revisits the feasibility of establishing workable international standards for addressing the dehumanizing violence and discrimination that women suffer by virtue of their gender. It concludes that human rights activists and organizations seeking justice for women must not rely on contemporary international law, but must instead focus on local grassroots and watch group institutions that are intimately aware of the abuses faced by women. Part I examines the nature of abuses against women qua women and looks critically at the United Nations' response to these crises. Part II discusses the deficiencies in public international law, namely the United Nations' Charter and the Women's Convention, and the inherent limitations of the framework of international law in addressing the issue of gender-based discrimination. Part III suggests local and regional solutions, particularly the development of extra-legal strategies and institutions to counter more effectively gender-based abuses and to change public attitudes about gender equity. This Article neither attempts nor claims to solve the problem of international human rights for women. It suggests seeking justice for women in an alternative setting: Human rights for women can be attained more fruitfully through localized structures that both prioritize education, control, and management and seek concrete solutions in the struggle against gender bias.

Chinkin C. Violence Against Women: The International Legal Response. In: Gender and Development. Vol. 3. 2nd ed. ; 1995. pp. 23-28. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4030511?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

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

In demanding the right to be free from violence, women are claiming what they are entitled to. Violence against women must be seen as a human-rights issue, and legal instruments created and enforced to guarantee protection for women.

Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995). The Fourth World Conference on Women. 1995. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/

The Fourth World Conference on Women, 
Having met in Beijing from 4 to 15 September 1995,

1. Adopts the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which are annexed to the present resolution;

2. Recommends to the General Assembly of the United Nations at its fiftieth session that it endorse the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action as adopted by the Conference. 

1993
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. United Nations. 1993. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://research.un.org/en/docs/ga/quick/regular/48

Document can be located under A/RES/48/104

The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993. It covers physical, sexual and psychological violence as well as violence both at home and elsewhere in society.

The definition of violence against women that the UN presents in the Declaration is currently the most widely accepted definition:

‘Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary  deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.’

The Declaration states three categories of violence against women: violence perpetrated by the State, such as violence against women in custody and as part of warfare; violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual harassment, trafficking in women and intimidation at work; and violence in the family and in the private sphere, for example incest and selective abortions).

According to the Declaration, violence against women is rooted in the historically unequal power relations between women and men. It also explains that violence against women is ‘one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men.’

The UN member states are therefore urged to legislate against the violence, work preventively and improve the situation of victimised women.

1992
Sullivan CM, Basta J, Tan C, Davidson WS. After the crisis: a needs assessment of women leaving a domestic violence shelter. Violence and Victims. 1992;7 (3) :267-275. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1294240

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

The current study presents the results of a needs assessment of 141 women exiting an emergency shelter for women with abusive partners. Extensive in-person interviews were conducted. Results indicate that battered women need numerous community resources upon their shelter exit, including legal assistance, employment, and housing. Race, age, and whether a woman was returning to her assailant influenced which resources she reported needing at shelter exit. Most of the women had experienced severe abuse and injuries, and required physical protection. Implications of these findings as they relate to program development and integration of social services are discussed.

CEDAW General Recommendation No. 19 - 1992 - Violence Against Women. CEDAW. 1992. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CEDAW/Pages/Recommendations.aspx

The Convention in Article 1 defines discrimination against women. The definition of discrimination includes gender-based violence, that is, violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately. It includes acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering, threats of such acts, coercion and other deprivations of liberty. Gender-based violence may breach specific provisions of the Convention, regardless of whether those provisions expressly mention violence. 

1990
CEDAW General Recommendation No. 14 - 1990 - Female Circumcision. CEDAW. 1990. Publisher's VersionAbstract

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CEDAW/Pages/Recommendations.aspx

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women recommends that States parties take appropriate and effective measures with a view to eradicating the practice of female circumcision (FGM) and provides various suggestions for what these activities could be and a requirement to include this in reports. 

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