Distinguished participants,

It is with great honour and pleasure that I deliver this keynote speech on the occasion of the Council of Europe campaign on the elimination of violence against women.

 Introduction

The vision that inspires the Council of Europe campaign is based on the global agenda to end all forms of violence against women at all levels. As articulated by the Beijing Platform for Action eleven years ago, “… violence both violates and impairs or nullifies the enjoyment by women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. …In all societies, to a greater or lesser degree, women and girls are subjected to physical , sexual and psychological abuse that cuts across lines of income, class and culture.…Violence against women is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between men and women ” (Beijing Platform for Action, para 112).

The global women’s movement has succeeded in making violence against women a public policy issue at the international level, which has been slowly but surely trickling down to the national level policy framework. There is a growing universal culture for women’s human rights that demonstrates that violence is not about the vulnerability of women, nor simply acts by deviant men or a characteristic of primitive cultures. Instead, the problem is understood to be rooted in an universal patriarchal culture entrenched in our consciousness as women and men, and in the core values and institutions of societies, albeit in diverse forms and varying degrees. Dynamics of gender relations, in other words, share a common history; therefore, they are both local and global; particular and universal.

Understanding the diverse trajectories of women’s individual and collective resistance to oppression and violence provides a powerful insight to how the agenda has evolved and how it can be moved forward in tackling the ‘pandemic’ of violence against women.

On 25 November 1992, UN international Day of No Violence against Women, Filomena Pacsi – an organization of miner women in the Peruvian Andes – organized an event where about 300 women marched through their community with placards saying ‘Here you don’t beat women’. Their husbands threatened them, men stood aside and jeered. The march was like a bomb. In 1996, they marched again. This time, men followed the march and said they were there because, ‘Thanks to Filomena Pacsi, we have learned not to treat our women this way, because it affects all of us’. [1]

This was, no doubt, not due to a revelation from above, but rather an awakening which was stimulated by social praxis. Can we assume from the above anecdote that violence against women is no longer a problem in the Peruvian Andes? The answer is, ‘most likely not’. However, we can safely assume that, in that community, the silence around the problem no longer exists, women’s resistance to violence continues, the consensus that violence against women is “normal” has been ruptured and hopefully the authorities have assumed their positive obligation to address the problem. At a more general level what this anecdote tells us is that men who are part of the problem have to be made part of the solution and that community compliance and cooperation is of paramount importance if efforts to combat violence against women are not to go astray.

This requires, among other strategies, challenging and changing values and attitudes with respect to gender relations and the use of violence against women as a patriarchal privilege particularly in the private sphere. Societies across the globe – through their laws and courts – continue to countenance legal defenses that privilege and benefit men committing violence against women. The privilege can be and must be revoked by criminalizing all acts of violence against women. Non-discriminatory legislation is an essential component of democratic governance, for providing women equal access to justice and for ensuring that crimes against women are not committed with impunity. However, a legal approach alone is not enough to transform patriarchal values that sustain and justify violence.

 Changing Attitudes

Combating violence against women requires a holistic strategy that employs multiple approaches that supplement the human rights approach in intervening at the level of the individual, the level of the community, the level of the state and the transnational arena. In my report to the Commission on Human Rights this year I elaborated such an approach at each level in considering the due diligence obligation of the state to prevent, investigate and in accordance with national legislation, punish acts of violence against women, whether those acts are perpetuated by the state or private persons ((E/CN.4/2006/61).

In addressing the issue of changing attitudes, I would like to emphasize dimensions of the problem at three levels of intervention that needs to be considered simultaneously, the first two being at the macro level involving societal / community attitudes and the third at the micro level involving individual attitudes: (i) attitudes embedded in deeply rooted patriarchal norms and values that operate to legitimize, approve or condone the use of violence against women; (ii) attitudes regarding gender roles embedded in the construction of power and domination based masculinity and subordinate femininity in sustaining an unequal gender order; and (iii) attitudes of individual men known to be systematically violent. While, the former two requires attitudinal change to prevent violence from occurring in the first place by creating critical consciousness and destabilizing the foundation of hegemonic masculinity, the third level requires responding to violence by challenging the motivations and attitudes underpinning the violent behavior of individual men.

 Changing attitudes at the macro leve

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Creating critical consciousness

An essential element of changing attitudes at the societal level must start with creating a public discourse that challenges the dominant societal values and norms regulating sexuality, defining acceptable patterns of masculine and feminine identities and structuring of gender relations. This requires states to actively engage in what I have called “cultural negotiation” to create critical consciousness with respect to popular notions of culture and its reproduction in society. Negotiating culture is a politically bold move as it (a) draws on positive elements within culture to demystify the oppressive elements of culture-based discourses; (b) demonstrates that culture is not an immutable and homogenous entity; and (c) identifies and contests the legitimacy of those who monopolize the right to speak on behalf of culture, religion, national interest and other oppressive and discriminatory values used to create consensus and mass mobilization, whether this takes place within state apparatuses or in civil society.

Through public campaigns, dissemination of gender sensitive information and responsible media reporting the promotion of hegemonic and discriminatory gender norms and practices presented as part of the national, natural or divinely ordained order of things can be challenged, which will contribute to expanding public space for alternative views and it will encourage and empower women and men alike to question notions of male superiority and domination and the taken for granted truths that legitimize them. Within this context, it is important that the differentially situated voices in society are heard and that social movements particularly women’s organizations facilitating this are recognized and supported by the authorities.

The Beijing Platform for Action identified the media as having the potential to make an invaluable contribution towards a gender sensitive public discourse. Given the advanced level of information technologies today, the media commands incredible power in formulating opinions and attitudes which transcends national boundaries. This power must be used with responsibility to effectively change attitudes that are discriminatory and tolerant of violence. The Platform calls upon the media to develop codes of conduct and other forms of self-regulation to promote non-stereotypical portrayals and degrading images of women and avoid sensationalized reporting of violence against women. The few existing good practices in this regard should be acknowledged and integrated into national, regional and international strategies to combat violence.

Public education campaigns are another powerful way of mobilizing community support for women’s rights and for promoting a zero tolerance to violence. While campaigns are often time bound, in order to achieve sustainability, they must aim to institutionalize their basic goals and principles into state policy, school curricula and working methods of key public institutions such as the police, the judiciary, immigration and health services and supported with a gender sensitive national budget. Public statements made by government leaders and other public figures have a similar impact of either empowering or disempowering the culture of violence. The state is required to send an unequivocal message that all forms of violence against women is a serious criminal act that will be investigated, prosecuted and punished, regardless of who the perpetuator is and what the motivation may be.

In this respect, it is particularly important to avoid selective response to the more sensationalized types of violence, such as honour related crimes or FGM, as is often the case. Such a selective perception fragments the phenomenon of violence against women, and results in normalizing certain types of violence while the “other” becomes stigmatized as the site of violence.

Deconstructing masculinity

Finally, if women are to live a life free of violence efforts to change attitudes must include strategies to challenge notions of masculinity based on policing women’s sexuality and /or on sustaining male supremacy in public and private life. Violence is not only an act of individual men but it is embedded in the way manhood is constructed, reinforced and challenged under societal pressures, social approval mechanisms and crisis situations. During my official visits to diverse countries I have seen that violence against women tends to intensify when men experience displacement and dispossession related to economic transformations, migration, war, foreign occupation or other situations where masculinities compete and power relations are altered in society. The impact of such situations on women is rarely taken into consideration in development, humanitarian and/or reconstruction programmes and immigration / refugee policies.

It must be borne in mind that while social change or conflict eliminates some forms of masculinity, hegemonic masculinity is re-configured thus reproducing gender inequality in discrete and subtle forms. Therefore, the sources of inequality must be attacked by de-linking power and masculinity at all levels and by recognizing and promoting alternative masculinities that are respectful of women’s rights. An environment that offers channels of equal participation for all members of society and inclusive democratic governance can foster such egalitarian values.

 Changing attitudes at the micro level

While transformative change is carefully tailored, in the short run, the behaviour of violent men also needs to be confronted and addressed. In various countries different models have been developed and employed by governmental and non-governmental organizations, particularly pro-feminist men, in addressing violent male behaviour. Good practices in this regard should be documented and disseminated so that they can be adapted to particular local conditions. Efforts to deal with violent men, however, must not lead to a deviation from the commitment to support women’s empowerment and the diversion of resources from women’s programmes. Women should not have to subsidize the treatment of violent men. Furthermore, let us not forget that elimination of violence against women is inherently a project of women’s empowerment.

 Conclusion

In conclusion, we must celebrate that eradicating violence against women and ensuring that human rights are universally enjoyed has become a common goal and a shared obligation. The progress achieved thus far towards this goal, although uneven and with notorious exceptions, has verified our conviction that oppressive values, institutions and unequal relationships can be transformed.

However, we must be vigilant of the post-9/11 environment, where tensions among peoples across the globe have intensified, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments heightened, and an overall conservatism has dominated global politics. This situation is not only making consensus in multi-lateral dialogue more difficult but it is directly threatening women’s rights, particularly in the areas of reproductive and sexual rights, including sexual orientation. The Council of Europe campaign on violence against women –if states embrace it with determination and commitment – provides a renewed opportunity to overcome these negative trends within the European region itself and through the bilateral and multilateral contributions of individual member states, the goals of the campaign can transcend its geographic boundaries. With such an expectation I believe that this campaign will prove to be another milestone towards women’s empowerment and gender equality.
As the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, I will monitor the process closely and would like to express my readiness to collaborate with the COE and its member states in realizing the goals of this campaign.
Thank you.

Note

[1] Quoted in: Francine Pickup et al. 2001. Ending Violence against Women. An Oxfam Publication.