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

40 PRACTITIONERS GUIDE No. 12
Marital rape, 86 (contrary to legal traditions that may
hold that a wife gives constant and on-going agreement
to sexual contact with her husband). 87
Stalking. 88
Sexual assault. 89
Sexual harassment at work. 90
private actors and they fail to exercise due diligence to prevent,
investigate, prosecute and punish such non-State officials or private
actors consistently with the Convention, the State bears responsibility
and its officials should be considered as authors, complicit or
otherwise responsible under the Convention for consenting to or
acquiescing in such impermissible acts. Since the failure of the State
to exercise due diligence to intervene to stop, sanction and provide
remedies to victims of torture facilitates and enables non-State actors
to commit acts impermissible under the Convention with impunity, the
State’s indifference or inaction provides a form of encouragement
and/or de facto permission. The Committee has applied this principle
to States parties’ failure to prevent and protect victims from genderbased
violence, such as rape, domestic violence, female genital
mutilation, and trafficking.
85
UN Declaration on Violence Against Women, adopted by the General
Assembly under resolution 48/104 (1993), Article 2(a).
86
Ibid, Article 2(a).
87
See generally, S.W. v The United Kingdom, European Court of
Human Rights Application No 20166/92, judgment of 22 November
1995, paragraph 37 onwards. See especially paragraph 44: “[T]he
abandonment of the unacceptable idea of a husband being immune
against prosecution for rape of his wife was in conformity not only with
a civilised concept of marriage but also, and above all, with the
fundamental objectives of the Convention, the very essence of which
is respect for human dignity and human freedom”.
88
The Istanbul Convention, above note 76, Article 34, defines stalking
as “the intentional conduct of repeatedly engaging in threatening
conduct directed at another person, causing her or him to fear for her
or his safety, is criminalised”.
89
Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and Interights v Egypt,
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Communication
334/06, in which the victims complained of having their clothes torn
and removed, their breasts and genitals groped, being beaten, slapped
and having their hair pulled, and being subjected to sexual and
gender-based insults such as “slut” and “whore”.