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Abstract
The campaign by feminists to gender the international human rights agenda predates the emergence of mainstreaming as a methodology. This ‘activist mainstreaming’ provides an interesting case study since it operates at the transnational level with actors primarily from civil society. This article explores how the issue of violence against women provided a strategic framing for a global alliance, which also proved adept at using the political opportunity structures of the UN, and developed effective mobilising structures and action repertoires. Whilst the ambition to gender human rights discourse can be said to have been largely achieved, the precise nature of the gains, and whether a focus on rights based claims betrays the foundations of feminist activism are critically examined.
Notes
1. Whilst an increasing number of men and men's organisations have become active in campaigns against VAW, their activities have not been central to the issues addressed in this paper.
2. None of the four research centres in the UK focusing on male violence are located in women's studies departments. They, and most individual researchers who work in this field, are more likely to be found in social work and social policy departments, followed by sociology, psychology and criminology. Perhaps this too could be seen as an unintended, but relatively successful, gender mainstreaming process in the academy.
3. The discussion within the UK Women's Liberation Movement about the ‘seventh’ demand on violence was one of the most bitter in an argumentative history. For example the UK Women's Liberation Movement was founded with four demands in the early 1970s covering employment, child care and reproductive rights. Two additional demands on legal and financial independence and self-determined sexuality were added a few years later, with the most difficult and bitter debates reserved for the ‘seventh’ demand on violence. In the US, and to some extent in Europe, with the inaccurately named ‘sex wars’ in the 1980s some of these debates were replayed with reference to pornography and the sex industry more broadly. In the 1990s, the contestation has centred on trafficking and accusations about yet another poorly conceptualised term ‘victimhood feminism’ (Kelly et al. Citation1996).
4. Written sources, including court records, reveal that throughout recorded history some women and girls have sought justice through reporting assaults to relevant authorities.
5. See the World Health Organisation website (www.who.org) for summaries of prevalence studies across the globe on domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual initiation and FGM and the recent report on the health consequences of violence (WHO Citation2002).
6. A common theme in feminist activism has been to establish an independent position for women, rather than being solely defined through connection to families as daughter, wife or mother. In this sense, the notion of the individual is a core aspect of all feminist perspectives, albeit that there is considerable variation in how familial relationships are understood and evaluated.
7. The UN Charter 1945; The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948; The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1976; The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 1976.
8. Reproductive rights were also potentially strong grounds, but there was less consensus about this area within women's movements, and strong lobbies resisting women's claims were well organised outside the movement.
9. A tribunal had been organised in 1976 in Brussels, and the documentation of it (Russell and Van De Veld Citation1976) reveals much about how violence against women was understood at this point.
10. For a recent publication that pays little heed to this, see for example, Hayden Citation(2001).
11. This is always the case with UN conferences, and veteran lobbyists understand that having input at the draft stage is probably the most important arena of influence.
12. UNDP uses a rights-based approach to development, stressing human dignity and freedom from fear.
13. The most recent revelations have prompted strong statements from Kofi Annan himself that sexual exploitation will not be tolerated in the UN.
14. This includes not only explicit reference to VAW, but also evidence of what is known about good and bad practice. Member states are urged, within the framework of their national legal systems, to: a) ensure that laws, codes and procedures related to violence against women are consistently enforced so that all criminal acts of violence against women are recognised and responded to by the criminal justice system; b) develop investigative techniques that do not degrade women, that minimise intrusion, while maintaining standards for the collection of the best evidence; c) ensure that police procedures, including decisions on the arrest, detention and terms of any form of release of the perpetrator, take into account the need for the safety of the victim and others related through family, socially or otherwise, and that these procedures also prevent further acts of violence; d) empower the police to respond promptly to incidents of violence against women; e) ensure that the exercise of police powers is undertaken according to the rule of law and codes of conduct and that the police may be held accountable for any infringement thereof; f) encourage women to join police services, including at the operational level.
15. Alongside calling for the involvement of women at all stages of conflict management and peace building, the resolution calls on all parties in armed conflict to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse.
16. Especially noteworthy here, and not uncontested among feminists, was the definition of trafficking which did not require force, and permitted consent to aspects of the process where recruitment was deceptive, and that signatories from destination countries had to address demand.
17. Attributed to strong lobbying and coalition between Women Living under Muslim Laws and Equality Now.
18. Prosecutor v. Kunarac, Kovac and Vukovic, ICTY Trial Chamber II, Judgment 22 February 2001, Case no. IT-96-23-T & IT-96-32/1-T.
19. A similar offence was introduced with respect to repeat sexual abuse of a child.
20. These challenges were to a reform that prevented defendants from cross-examining the victim/witness and another that limited the use of sexual history evidence. Both were denied.
21. One recent example here was a long established Polish Women's Centre seeking to build capacity to provide self-defence courses for survivors and women seeking to prevent violence. The potential funders responded that this could not qualify as a violence against women project (Seith and Kelly Citation2003).
22. This has since been extended to six years.