Experts call for end to global epidemic of femicide

International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women 25 November 2018

GENEVA (23 November 2018) –  In a joint statement issued ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and other UN and regional human rights experts* call on all States and relevant stakeholders to end the global epidemic of femicide, or gender-related killings of women, and gender-based violence against women. In part, it reads:

“Data from both States and the United Nations show that 80 percent of victims of all intentional killings involving intimate partners (in which there is an established intimate relationship between perpetrator and victim) are women. Several Member States, NGOs and academic institutions have also provided data on femicide, following a call for contributions issued by the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.

While the #MeToo and #NiUnaMenos movements have broken the silence and demonstrated that violence against women, girls and adolescents is happening throughout our communities, they have not always been followed by adequate reforms of laws and policies, nor have they produced much needed results and changes in women’s daily lives.

Gender-based violence, including new forms of gender-based violence and online violence against women, remain widely unpunished across the world.  As such, States must comply with their international and regional obligations in terms of their due diligence to investigate, identify those responsible and hold them accountable.

We call for strengthened cooperation between independent global and regional mechanisms, as common synergies and efforts to address violence against women under the existing normative framework on human rights, and reiterate calls to end the global epidemic of gender-based killings or femicides (#NiUnaMenos) and to support the voices of those speaking up against endemic violence against women (#MeToo).”

Full statement

ENDS
 
(*) The UN and regional women’s human rights mechanisms are as follows: Dubravka Šimonovic, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences; the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women; the UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice; the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence of the Council of Europe;Lucy Asuagbor, Special Rapporteur on Rights of Women in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights; Margarette May Macaulay, ; and Sylvia Mesa, President of the Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention.

(*) Report of the Special rapporteur to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the modalities of establishing femicide watch (A/71/398)

For more information and media inquiries please contact: UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women: Ms. Orlagh McCann (+41 22 917 9002 / omccann@ohchr.org) or Maria Roberta Serrentino (mserrentino@ohchr.org/ +41 22 917 9915); African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights: +220 441 05 05 / 441 05 06 / au-banjul@africa-union.org; Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Ms. María Isabel Rivero (+1 202 370 9001 / mrivero@oas.org); GREVIO: Ms. Liri Kopaçi-Di Michele (+33667414625 / liri.kopaci-dimichele@coe.int); Follow-Up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI): Ms. Javiera Sandoval (+1 202 370 4572, jsandoval@oas.org).