Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences, Ms Dubravka šimonović at the Global Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament, 12-13 December 2016

13 December, 15:25

Your excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen, Speakers and Members of Parliament,

Let me begin by thanking Dr.Amal Al Qubaisi, the first woman Speaker of the Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates, and Mr.Saber Chowdhury, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, for inviting me to participate in the Global Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament and to contribute in the panel entitled “United towards a more inclusive society” from the angle of my mandate as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequence. 

The Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences mandate was established in 1994 by the than Commission on Human Rights to integrate violence against women into the United Nations human rights agenda and to recommend measures, at national, regional and international levels, to eliminate violence against women. I was appointed to serve in that position as an independent expert by the Human Rights Council in 2015.

In implementing my mandate I conduct country visits, during which I hold meetings with  high level Government officials, non-governmental organizations and members of parliaments regarding the violence against women situation in the country.

Since the beginning of my mandate I have visited South Africa, Georgia, Israel, OPT/State of Palestine and Argentina. I am aware of the IPU practice of transmitting recommendations issued by the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to parliaments and I hope that the IPU would also follow that practice with respect to my reports and transmit these to members of the parliament of the county concerned.

As a The Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women I also elaborate thematic reports on violence against women. The latest report I issued was on the adequacy of the international framework on violence against women; it also contained a set of recommendations for the establishment of the Femicide watch or gender related killings of women watch and/or observatories on violence against women.

 In the future I plan on issuing a thematic report on violence against women in politics. I hope to establish an effective cooperation with the IPU and with speakers of Parliaments  in elaboration of this report and to collect inputs form you with a view to identify bad practices and include more good practices and recommendations on prevention of violence against women in politics.

At this panel we are addressing the topic United towards a more inclusive society.

What is an inclusive society? It is a society in which no one is left behind. 

What is more gender inclusive society? It is a society in which women, who constitute half of it, are not left behind; society without sex/gender based discrimination and which is free from violence against women and girls; society in which substantive equality between women and man has been achieved. Today we are still far away from "achieving gender equality". We live in world in which discrimination and violence against women and girls are normalized, talking about domestic violence is still taboo, it is underreported and happening behind closed doors. 

What should be done? What is the role of women members of Parliaments?

An answer to this question appears in the joint statement issued following my initiative, by all global and regional mechanisms working in violence against women issues, this year on the occasion of the International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women - 25 November. The mechanisms (the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Inter- American Special Rapporteur on violence against women, the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa, the United Nations Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice, the Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará  Convention(MESECVI) and the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence of the Council of Europe (GREVIO)), called jointly for the intensification of international, regional and national efforts  for prevention of femicides and gender based violence against women.

Monitoring work at both global and regional levels has shown that:

There is widespread impunity due to the lack of implementation of the global and regional instruments on women's rights and violence against women and the failure to turn these into real protection of every woman and girl.

There are significant gaps and shortcomings in national legislation and prevention systems often combined with tolerance of such violence, exacerbated by a lack of reliable and disaggregated data, the absence of adequate risk assessments, and concealment and underreporting of gender-related killings, rapes and other forms of gender based violence against women. 

Violence against women is rooted in inequalities and discrimination against women and its prevention and eradication must be grounded in gender equality and empowerment of women

All States must, as a matter of urgency and in collaboration with civil society and other stakeholders, step up their efforts to prevent and eradicate femicides, rapes and other forms of gender based violence against women and girls. 

All stakeholders are urged to guarantee each and every woman and girl a life free from violence by applying holistic integrated policies on:

• PREVENTION:  fully endorsing, incorporating and implementing global and regional treaties on women's rights and violence against women (CEDAW and its Optional Protocol, the Belém do Pará Convention, the Maputo Protocol and the Istanbul Convention). In that regard member of parliaments can work on narrowing down or withdrawing reservations by States parties to international treaties;
• PROTECTION: providing shelters and safe places, crisis centers, protection orders and services for women and their children survivors of violence  and integrating gender perspective in the work of legal professionals and law enforcements officials dealing with violence against women; 
• PROSECUTION, including sanctions of perpetrators and providing redress and reparations for the victims and their families.

Parliaments as legislators have a strategic role to play in upholding gender equality and combating violence against women in national laws in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and regional instruments and using synergies and complementary between them. Parliaments could - cooperate with the CEDAW Committee and my mandate in line with their respective mandates.

Collection of data on violence against women is crucial, because it provides important evidence of reality of violence against women. One mayor in a country that I visited stated that “there is no violence against women - it is the same like in the European Union”! 

The European Union's Fundamental Rights agency (FRA) published, in March 2014, a study on violence against women in 28 EU Member states. It indicated that 1 in 3 women in the European Union had experienced physical or sexual violence; 1 in 3 has experienced psychologically abusive behavior by an intimate partner; 1 in 2 (55%) have experienced sexual harassment; 1 in 20 has been raped.

In 2015 I have called on all States to establish a “Gender-Related Killing of Women (Femicide) Watch” or observatory on violence against women and to publish every year on the International Day on the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November) the number of femicide or gender-related killing of women, disaggregated by age and sex of the perpetrators, the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim(s), as well as information on the perpetrators’ prosecution and punishment. 

Each femicide should be carefully examined to identify any failure of protection, with a view to improving and further developing preventive measures.  

The recent IPU study on harassment, intimidation and violence against women in parliament showed that: women were being subjected to sexism, harassment and violence against women. It sought to clarify what this phenomenon consists of, in what forms it occurs and what is its prevalence. The study found that violence targets women with the aims to discourage them in particular from being or becoming active in politics. It is part of a broader stereotype on the role of women in public and private sphere. The study’s findings confirm that sexism, harassment and violence against women parliamentarians are very real and widespread and that they exist in every country, albeit to a different degree. The study also showed high  levels of prevalence of psychological violence, affecting 81.8% of the women members of parliament from all countries and regions; 65.5% of the surveyed said they had been subjected several times, or often, to humiliating sexist remarks during their parliamentary term. Such events, however usually are not treated as criminal offenses, since the perpetrators would be covered by immunity as members of parliament. 

I propose the following solutions: collection of  statistics, research and documentation on the incidence of violence against women; analysis of immunity laws that protect members of parliaments; analysis of concrete cases;  development of codes of conduct; voluntary commitments of all members of parliaments against such violence; creation of adequate reporting procedures; creation of an IPU procedure. The possibility also exists for the submission of a communication to my mandate.

The  National Democratic Institute’s has an initiative (#NotTheCost)  to collect instances of violence against politically active women, whether they are activists, party members, voters, candidates, elected or appointed officials, etc. This information will be passed by NDI to my mandate.

In conclusion, we need to accelerate our efforts in achieving gender equality and elimination of violence against women. The trend of increased political participation of women is an important one, but with world average at 23 % it is not yet a major trend and women are not yet equally shaping our future. 

Let us change this! The Secretary General of the IPU has stated that "change is possible".

Let us turn gender equality into mega trend by which women and man will equally shape our future! 

Thank you!