UN seeks worldwide adoption of femicide watch

Dubravka Simonovic, a key global expert on violence against women and women’s rights, has reiterated her call for intensification of international, regional and national efforts to prevent femicides or gender related killings of women, and other forms of gender-based violence.

The implementation of femicide watch in all countries will also contribute to identify existing failure of protection, boost preventive measures as well as tackle impunity for perpetrators.

The statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, marks the 16 Days of Activism against gender-based violence, as well as International Human Rights Day on 10 December.

“I congratulate all those States and stakeholders who have established a gender-related killing of women (femicide) watch or observatory and call upon others to do so in all countries,” she said in a statement UNB received from Geneva.

Femicide, which she defines as the murder of a woman or girl on the grounds of her sex and/or gender, represents one the most horrible forms of gender-based violence. 

It is perpetrated against a woman because she is a woman or it disproportionately affects women and girls. 

Such guiding definition should be used also as global reference for the collection of data on gender-based violence against women and for the development of femicide rate indicators.

“Each case of femicide is an individual woman’s tragic story and there is the urgent need to focus on the prevention of these avoidable killings by undertaking in-depth analysis aimed at identifying shortcomings in the criminal justice system,” Simonovic said.

Establishing a femicide watch to collect, analyze and review data at the national, regional and global level will galvanize the gathering of information on good practices with a view to enhancing the protection of all women and girls from gender-based violence.

In order to prevent and eradicate femicide and gender-based violence against women and girls worldwide, she said, States should increase their efforts to establish femicide watch and gender-based violence observatories and to strengthen their legal framework and its implementation by all relevant actors.

She also urged States and stakeholders to increase the number of shelters or safe places for women and girls who are victims or at risk of violence, and to provide immediately accessible and effective protection orders. 

Data on shelters and protection orders should also be considered as objective indicators under Target 2 of Sustainable Development Goal 5 on the elimination of violence against women.

All States must, as a matter of urgency and in collaboration with civil society and other stakeholders, strengthen their efforts to prevent and eradicate femicides or gender-related killings of women and all forms of gender-based violence against women and girls, including by amending their national legislation and ratifying and implementing all global and regional women’s rights instruments aimed at tackling this pandemic, she said.

Source: unb