Universal-Womens-accesss-to-justice-Publications-Practitioners-Guide-Series-2016-ENG

V
WOMEN’S ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE 23
c) Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated
or condoned by the State, wherever it occurs.
In 1992, the CEDAW Committee, the supervisory body which
provides the authoritative interpretation of the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW Convention) identified “[g]ender-based violence as a
form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women’s ability to
enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men”. 34
Gender-based violence, said the Committee, is “violence that is
directed against a woman because she is a women or that
affects women disproportionately.” 35
The Beijing Platform for Action identified violence against
women as “one of the crucial social mechanisms by which
women are forced into a subordinate position compared with
men”. 36
When is an act of violence “gender-based”?
Amnesty International has suggested that “[s]ome of the
elements that may be examined to determine whether an act
of violence is gender-based include:
Cause or motive: for example, distinctly expressed
gender insults during violence;
Circumstances or context: for example, abuse of women
of a certain group within an armed conflict;
The act itself, the form a violation takes: for example,
overtly sexual acts, forced nudity, mutilation of sexual
parts of the body;
The consequences of a violation: pregnancy; shame and
secondary victimization by the survivor’s community
34
CEDAW General Recommendation No 19, above note 15, paragraph
1.
35
Ibid, paragraph 6.
36
Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Report of the Fourth
World Conference on Women, UN Doc A/CONF.177/20 Rev.1 (1995),
paragraph 117.