A Little Help From UN-likely Places

Rashida Manjoo, UN special rapporteur on violence against women, just held a side event at UN headquarters where she made some very interesting suggestions about current efforts to tackle violence against women.

She said that the use of  “gender-based” violence is not good because it distracts from violence against women. The term is broad and vague, and takes away the focus from chronic of violence against women to something that is not even quite clear. Western countries prefer using gender based vviolence because it is flexible and moldable to include notions such as sexual orientation and gender identity.

Inversely, “intimate partner” violence, is too narrow, and does not capture all the violations against women that take place in the domestic setting. Manjoo said most of the violence against women takes place in the domestic setting. Therefore focusing on “domestic violence in preferable.”

She also said that focusing on the very specific setting of “conflict and post-conflict” situations is not helpful because it detracts from the pervasive everyday violence that takes place against women. It directs funding and efforts to only those situations, hurting other broader efforts against VAW.

This bears directly on the ongoing negotiations on the resolution on Violence Against Women in the 3d committee of the GA. Negotiators will get the message.

Manjoo’s opinion on other matters is entirely controversial. She has been a big proponent of UN bureaucrats promoting LGBT rights even though there is no UN mandate to do so. She supports the notion that complete abortion bans, and certain restrictions on abortion are human rights violations. And she spews vitriol against patriarchy, religion, culture and tradition.

View online at: https://c-fam.org/turtle_bay/help-from-unlikely-places/

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