PROGRAMME
Welcome & Introductions Paul Ladd Director, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) IGC Gender Champion
A roundtable conversation with:
- Jane Aeberhard-Hodges Policy Director, Every Woman Treaty
- Flavia Agnes, Women's rights lawyer and pioneer of the women's movement in India
- Francisco Rivera, Director, International Human Rights Clinic, Santa Clara University School of Law
- Patricia Schulz, Senior Research Associate, UNRISD, and member of CEDAW (2011-2018)
Moderator: Manisha Desai, Visiting Fellow, UNRISD
- Closing Remarks Ambassador Aurora Díaz-Rato Revuelta, Permanent Mission of Spain to the United Nations in Geneva IGC Gender Champion
ABOUT
The time has come for a new global agreement to end the scourge of violence against women. Violence against women is a public health and human rights crisis that affects the social fabric of every nation. Statistically, one in three—or 1.3 billion—women and girls experience sexual assault or intimate partner violence in their lifetime. COVID-related lockdowns have contributed to increased figures on domestic violence against women trapped with perpetrators. For many women surviving violence around the world, there is no easy path to justice. Laws, government systems, and social norms favour perpetrators. In courtrooms, media, communities, and homes, female survivors of violence are often blamed, ignored and not believed, entrenching the world in a system of silence and impunity.
The international community has come together to solve the problem through various instruments, including regional treaties, recommendations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and treaties specific to certain forms of violence, such as torture and trafficking. The lack of a comprehensive, binding global framework specific to violence against women and girls has resulted in a patchwork of protection with wide normative, geographical, and enforcement gaps in women’s safety.
Since 2013 the Every Woman Global Working Group has engaged in a global, inclusive dialogue on the need for a treaty specific to violence against women and girls, and conducted in-depth analysis of the existing legal frameworks with front line activists, members of the Every Woman Treaty Coalition, and additional legal and medical experts. The worldwide consultation found that a binding global norm would close the existing normative, geographic and implementation gaps in women’s security; provide comprehensive backup to existing mechanisms; and create a framework at the highest level of international law in which all actors—from governments to civil society to the UN—could work together to eradicate this human rights crisis.
This webinar is part of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, and the roll-out of the IGC Gender-based Violence Pledge.