Leigh Webber, Public Interest Lawyers On 11 May 2011, after more than 2
years of negotiations, the first 13 states signed the historic “Convention on
Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence” (the “Convention”)
in Istanbul. The Convention is only the second regional instrument on the
subject, after the Convention
of Belém
do Pará
was adopted by the Organization of American States almost 17 years ago. Public
Interest Lawyers welcomes the treaty, and urges the British Government to
ratify it without delay.
The Convention is, in the words
of the French Government, an ‘ambitious text’. It aspires to ‘create a
Europe free from violence against women and domestic violence’, and notes that
violence against women is a ‘manifestation of historically unequal power
relations between women and men’. The Convention is firmly in the ‘new
camp’ of human rights treaties, as it requires states to promote changes in social and cultural patterns
of behaviour of women and men, and affirms that women and girls require both
negative and positive liberties in order to truly live, rather than to merely
exist. Given this context,
how far does this convention go towards constituting a long-awaited treaty that
transcends political boundaries to protect women and girls in Europe?
It obliges states to take the
necessary measures to ensure the right to live free of violence in both the
public and private sphere, forbids states from engaging in violence against
women, and places a duty upon them to stop non-state actors doing the same. This
convention thus unashamedly extends its influence to private individuals, who
are, after all, the perpetrators of the vast majority of violence against
women. The Convention also expressly
requires states to allocate financial and human resources for its
implementation.
Human
Rights Watch summarise that the Convention:
defines and criminalizes multiple forms of
violence against women: physical, sexual and psychological violence, as well as
forced marriage and female genital mutilation. The treaty also establishes an
international group of independent experts to monitor its implementation at the
national level…To implement the convention, countries will establish hotlines,
shelters, medical and forensic services, counseling, as well as legal aid.
And indeed, the Convention does go
far. Further, in fact, than the British Government would have liked. As the
document passed through the drafting stages, the UK sought to limit its scope
to peace-time; undermining the immeasurable damage done to the countless women
and girls every year who are victims of rape being used as a weapon of war. Sadly,
as if to illustrate the danger of the Government’s position, reports
emerged of Gaddafi issuing his troops with Viagra ‘so they go out and rape
women’.
Perhaps more worryingly, The Times carried the story that ‘British
officials have astounded members of the Council of Europe with a last-minute
intervention arguing that violence against women is not a violation of human
rights.’ With respect to another UK proposed amendment, Amnesty
International reported that ‘The
UK has proposed to delete the term “the right to live free from violence”
claiming that there is no right to live free from violence in the private and
public sphere.’ Given there is an ample body of both domestic and
international law in existence that grants the right to have one’s life and
body protected, the UK’s position was truly retrogressive in this respect.
The UK also
sought to remove a key provision, the obligation on states to apply due
diligence in investigating crimes against women. If there is no effective
investigation into alleged crimes, the Convention is of little help, especially
given the huge risks taken by women who make allegations. Another provision that the UK tried to thwart
was Article 61, the non-refoulement provision, where they tried to water down
‘victims shall not be returned to any country where their lives would be at
risk or they would be at risk of torture, inhuman or degrading punishment’
(paraphrasing), by changing it to ‘real risk’, in line with the terminology of the
European Court of Human Rights. We believe that the inherently higher risk to
victims of domestic violence (the perpetrator usually lives in the same home as
them) justifies the lower threshold needed for the non-refoulement provision to
‘bite’.
The Convention
was eventually adopted without the UK’s diluting proposals included, and its
full text can be found here. Public Interest Lawyers hope that the British Government will sign
and ratify this important document soon, free of reservations and declarations
that would defeat the purpose of the convention, and render its much-needed
benefits useless.
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