Experts call for end to global epidemic of femicide

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
25 November 2018

Experts call for end to global epidemic of femicide

GENEVA (23 November 2018) – In a joint statement issued ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and other UN and regional human rights experts* call on all States and relevant stakeholders to end the global epidemic of femicide, or gender-related killings of women, and gender-based violence against women. In part, it reads:

“Data from both States and the United Nations show that 80 percent of victims of all intentional killings involving intimate partners (in which there is an established intimate relationship between perpetrator and victim) are women. Several Member States, NGOs and academic institutions have also provided data on femicide, following a call for contributions issued by the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.

While the #MeToo and #NiUnaMenos movements have broken the silence and demonstrated that violence against women, girls and adolescents is happening throughout our communities, they have not always been followed by adequate reforms of laws and policies, nor have they produced much needed results and changes in women’s daily lives.

Gender-based violence, including new forms of gender-based violence and online violence against women, remain widely unpunished across the world. As such, States must comply with their international and regional obligations in terms of their due diligence to investigate, identify those responsible and hold them accountable.

We call for strengthened cooperation between independent global and regional mechanisms, as common synergies and efforts to address violence against women under the existing normative framework on human rights, and reiterate calls to end the global epidemic of gender-based killings or femicides (#NiUnaMenos) and to support the voices of those speaking up against endemic violence against women (#MeToo).”

The full statement can be found at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23921&LangID=E

ENDS

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