Kay Nandlall

International Women's Perspective

What I will do is speak about the process which lead up to the video The Vienna Tribunal and what the outcome of the video was. I think that violence against women, as Ed Broadbent - Chairperson of the Centre for International Human Rights and Democratic Development - said, that it is an issue that we all need to be aware of and be apart of in order to solve this global problem

My involvement with violence against women originally began with the National Action Committee (NAC) about fourteen years ago. I was aware of its existence, but I did not realize how bad it really was. At NAC there were fourteen committees, one of which was Violence Against Women. At this time the Board was having difficulty placing violence against women as a top priority which resulted in a lot of conflicts between committees. I'm not sure that we all realized the full extent of violence, and if we did it almost tended to be an "accepted" thing, or perhaps it was a norm. The Director of the Violence Against Women committee was very upset about it not being given top priority, as she had worked at a transition house for many years and was well aware of the impact of the problem. She decided to take a few days off, and upon her return discovered that the committees had agreed to give her committee the priority over all issues.

After leaving NAC, I went to work at a transition house here in Fredericton. This was a very painful experience for me because I felt a lot for the women that were coming in. I remember this one incident where a woman came in who was all covered with blood as she had been bitten by her husband. To say the least, I learned a lot about the extent of violence through my work at this transition house.

When I was appointed to the Board of the Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, violence against women was a big issue for me, and I became a part of the Ad Hoc committee that made the policies for the Centre, and International Women became a part of our mandate. One of the women in the video put together a proposal to the Board to have the United Nations take on this most pressing issue. Thus, at the Vienna Conference both Canada and the Centre were very significant as Ed Broadbent had really pushed for both to get involved with the issue of violence against women.

After the video, a special rapporteur was appointed by the UN. Yet, the more I see what is involved or surrounding this position the more I wonder why it is women that encounter such difficulties. For instance, the rapporteur is paid through a centre based in Sri Lanka, and is in reality working for the UN for free. She has only one researcher but is responsible for more than half the population of the world.

Seeing that we had started the process with The Vienna Tribunal, we invited the rapporteur to the Centre along with thirty seven women's experts to continue the process and develop a mandate for her. This two day conference created three broad area:

1. The state must be acknowledged to be responsible and accountable, and respond effectively to the phenomena of violence against women, whether such violence occurs within the public or private sphere,

2. There must be accurate documentations of violence against women. Governments, non governmental organizations and the special rapporteur must respond to this problem on an urgent basis,

3. Special rapporteur resources, like the resources for human rights generally within the UN mandate are extremely limited. In order for her to effectively fulfil her mandate the special rapporteur will require NGO support, governmental collaboration and UN co-ordination.

The participants at this meeting offered support to the special rapporteur, and called upon governments of the world to devise national action plans to address the problem of violence against women, urging that such plans will provide a clear set of goals and a yardstick against which progress can be measured. During this meeting, Ed Broadbent decided that the Centre would contribute $30,000 over a three year period for the rapporteur mandate. As the rapporteur is unable to reach everyone, the Centre can act as the conduit so that she can get her work done in an effective way.

By having this first session with the NGO's, I think that she will now have contacts who can provide her with resource materials. Also, when she travels to these countries, she will now have people that she knows to call upon. In effect, the Centre is helping her along, as well as helping her with her UN mandate.

We also felt that the rapporteur should be aware of what the situation is like in Canada, so while she was here we had her meet with members of our federal government. We also prepared a proposal which we presented to the Foreign Policy Committee to increase their awareness of this issue so that our people in Canada can help her. When we presented this proposal, we encouraged the Canadian Government to help the rapporteur through their Foreign Policy Aid because she needs more staff.

It should be noted that it is through the rapporteur that the UN can be informed about the issue of violence against women that exists throughout the world. As you may have noticed in the video, the Vienna Tribunal took place outside of the UN body.

The rapporteur will need to look at general human rights norms applicable to violations of physical and mental integrity and security of the person, the prohibition of gender discrimination and violence against women, violence by private actors, the scope of the state responsibility for both state and non state violations, violence against women within the context of economic, social and cultural rights, priority concerns of activists, measures to prevent violence against women, NGO documentation capacity and the relationship between the special rapporteur mandate and other UN human rights mechanisms. All these areas fall within the understanding of the UN mandate. Needless to say, the UN does not lack in high ideas and principles, but the action of implementation tends not to be there.

In the terms of violence against women it was not felt that more international documents were needed. There already existed a comprehensive international framework in thee International Bill of Rights, through which violence could have been addressed by individual states and the international committee had they chosen to apply the provisions with a rigour equal to that evidenced in the interpretation, application and relationship to the situation of men. The absence of equal rigour was seen to have prompted the need to ask for clearer definitions and stronger protection for women's rights and the states responsibility to promote and protect them through instruments such as the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

The meeting was therefore not one articulating ideas, for we felt that was done by the UN, but rather one focused on implementations to consider how the mechanisms of the special rapporteur could contribute most directly and substantially to both the methods of war within the relevant treaty bodies and in concert with other thematic and special mechanisms to ensure that the issue of violence against women was coherently and systematically addressed by states.

Victims of violence in armed conflicts, that are victims of domestic, physical and psychological violence are made up of a proportionate number of refugees and internally displaced persons. Particular emphasis was given to this point by the NGOs because they have seen an overwhelming majority of women, in every region of the world, who are unable to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression, and to speak to their experiences freely and without fear. It has been shown historically that when a person does not enjoy their right to freedom of expression, the effective enjoyment of most other rights, such as the right to life and security of the person, remains beyond reach. It was accepted that unless the silence surrounding women was broken, societies would continue to witness daily incidents and practices against women, on both large and small scales and in both public and private spheres, that are degrading, violent, predictable, preventable, and worst of all tolerated.

Given the priorities and preoccupations women have articulated over the year, and finally succeeded in placing on the international agenda, the approach adopted by the meeting was practical rather than theoretical. We were looking more at the causes and consequences rather than philosophy of talk. For this reason, we saw the mandate of the rapporteur as one to give effective meaning to the rights of women for freedom of expression.

It bears repeating that the intent not to have the outcome of the meeting assumed to be one taken as uniquely prescriptive, but rather as reflecting general outlines of broad areas of concern to women, through the special rapporteur who could then consider incidents and practices on a more specific or local nature. It can be stated that the diversity of views expressed at the NGO experts meeting proved that such gatherings are essential if the mandate of the special rapporteur of violence against women is to be comprehensibly implemented. The differences are not to be seen as obstacles or mere matters of opinion, neither can they be assumed to be differences that can be exploited by existing institutions. Rather, the diversity of views must be understood to have underlying commonalities. The commentaries reinforced what women already know, namely that in every region of the world women are victimized by a wide range of discriminatory policies and practices. It was also evident from the meeting that the common will and determination expressed will depend on the continuing and increasing participation of NGOs. Moreover, regional networking and co-operation are vital elements if we are to succeed in eliminating this violence.

What was finally suggested to the rapporteur was to collect as much documentation from the various countries she will visit, so that it can be used against those countries. In other words, the most effective way to eliminate violence against women is by shaming those countries internationally to change their discriminatory practices.

I think essentially that the rapporteur role will be collecting information, creating awareness and changing those customs. The Beijing Conference being held this year will play a very important role in raising awareness, for hopefully all those women attending will take the information back to their countries to distribute and share the knowledge they gained.

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© 2007 Atlantic Human Rights Centre, St. Thomas University