Special Section:
International Progress in the VAW Movement

Violence Against Women as a Human Rights Issue

by Yunjo Lee

Conceptualizing VAW as a basic human-rights violation has been empowering for women, says Charlotte Bunch, the founder and director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. In this framework, VAW is not viewed as an individual misfortune or “just life,” but becomes “something that is political and that society says should not happen.” When VAW is seen as a human-rights issue, governments are obligated to end it and account for their failure to meet this obligation. The human-rights framework has also opened access to human-rights mechanisms at all levels and enabled women to work effectively with the human-rights community to expose human-rights abuses and hold governments accountable for their obligations.

Framing of VAW as a human-rights issue goes far beyond the issue of VAW, added Charlotte Bunch. “It has encouraged women to pose many of our struggles/issues as questions of ‘rights’ not just of ‘needs’ or ‘desires.’” This understanding has expanded the scope of women’s rights to socio-economic, civil, and political human rights, and enabled women to ask governments to account for the well-being of their citizens and hold international actors accountable for the human-rights implications of their policies. Moreover, it has given women a powerful language to articulate their reproductive and sexual rights: that control over one’s body/sexuality is central to human rights.

References

Women’s Human Rights net (2004) “What are the implications of a rights based approach for the struggle against violence against women? An interview with Charlotte Bunch.” Available at http://www.whrnet.org/docs/interview-bunch-0402.html.