full version - World Organisation Against Torture

United Kingdom1. Preliminary ObservationsThe submission of information on violence against women to theCommittee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination forms part of theWorld Organisation Against Torture’s (OMCT) programme on violenceagainst women. One of the aims of this programme is to integrate a genderperspective into the work of the five “mainstream” United Nationshuman rights treaty-monitoring bodies and, to this end, this report willfocus on women from ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom and theirparticular vulnerability to violence.The need to integrate the human rights of women into the work of thehuman rights treaty bodies was stressed at the 1993 Vienna WorldConference on Human Rights 1 and reiterated in the Beijing Platform forAction adopted in 1995 by the Fourth World Conference on Women. 2 TheBeijing Platform for Action states that women belonging to minoritygroups and women in situations of armed conflict are especially vulnerableto violence and highlights the fact that women from racial or ethnicminorities often face multiple forms of discrimination. 3At its 56 th Session in March 2000, the Committee on the Elimination ofRacial Discrimination adopted General Recommendation 25 concerningthe gender-related dimensions of racial discrimination. 4 The GeneralRecommendation draws attention to the fact that women and men are notalways affected equally or in the same way by racial discrimination andnotes that “certain forms of racial discrimination may be directed towardswomen specifically because of their gender.” The GeneralRecommendation and the Reporting Guidelines issued by the Committeeon the Elimination of Racial Discrimination call upon States to providespecific information and disaggregated statistical data concerning the gender-relateddimensions of racial discrimination.The Final Declaration of the World Conference against Racism, RacialDiscrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance notes that victimsof racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia “can suffer multiple oraggravated forms of discrimination based on other related grounds suchas sex…” and that “…racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia andrelated intolerance reveal themselves in a differentiated manner forwomen and girls, and can be among the factors leading to a deterioration387