Violence Against Women

Violence Against Women (VAW) has been, and still continues to be, one of the most wide ranging yet surprisingly under-recognised Human Rights violations. Taking into consideration the gravity and varying forms of abuse that women are being subjected to, it is apparent that acts of VAW are not isolated events in a particular society or culture but are, in fact, a global phenomenon which circumvent socio-economic structures and educational classes.             
                    
It is only in recent years, due to the untiring efforts of the International women’s rights movement, that VAW received the attention it deserved. This led to the drafting of various legislations dealing with VAW, such as the Vienna Accord, Beijing Declaration and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination AgainstWomen (CEDAW).

In the year 1993, with the adoption of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on
Elimination of Violence Against Women, International law defined the concept of
VAW for the first time as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”1 This acknowledgement of VAW in the private sphere has given

International focus to domestic violence as an unacceptable human rights violation.

Domestic violence is indeed one of the most hidden and tragic forms of VAW as it takes place in the sanctity of the home, at the hands of someone who is in an intimate relationship with the woman and professes to or ideally should love and care deeply for her.

Zero tolerance of violence against women must remain a constitutional goal. Thus, the primary responsibility to stop violence is that of the State. However, since civil society has an equal, if not a greater, stake in ending violence against women…