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Lucia Mazzuca and Keina Yoshida - 12th August 2016
On 19 November 2015, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) handed down a decision on gender-based violence in Guatemala. This decision comes at a time when Guatemala has been pursuing prosecutions for grave crimes perpetrated during the dictatorship of Rios Montt (as a background, see the documentary “Granito: How to Nail a Dictator”). […]
Lucia Mazzuca and Keina Yoshida - 9th August 2016
In November 2015, a decade after the sexual assault and murder of a young Guatemalan woman, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (‘the Court’) released a ground-breaking judgment further clarifying the scope and content of states’ responsibility in addressing gender-based violence. On 12 August 2005, Claudina Isabel Velásquez Paiz, a 19 years old student, went […]
Arushi Garg - 15th July 2016
This post examines a petition made to the Indian Supreme Court by a rape victim’s mother. The petitioner avers that her daughter’s case should be tried in a court set up to prosecute sexual offences against children because even though the victim is 38 years old, her mental age is that of a three-year-old. It […]
Alec Cunningham - 24th June 2016
The recently published 2015 Global Burden of Armed Violence (GBAV) report by the Small Arms Survey has continued in the same vein as the two previous publications in 2008 and 2011. The reports highlight a concerning trend of violence inflicted on women in numerous countries, including El Salvador, South Africa, Russia, Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil, Ukraine, […]
Karen Busby - 4th April 2016
For the last 16 months, Canadians have been engaged in extraordinary conversations connected to the sexual assault allegations leveled against one of Canada’s most charming and charismatic talk show hosts, Jian Ghomeshi. In October 2014, Ghomeshi posted a defence of his interest in “rough sex” on Facebook in an attempt to get ahead of a […]
Viviana Waisman - 7th March 2016
On paper, it looked like a victory for women’s rights. The government of Colombia enacted historic legislation to address the country’s epidemic of sexual violence – one heightened by decades of armed conflict that left women and girls particularly vulnerable. This legislation, Law 1719, would be a road map for health service providers to follow […]
Luigi Lonardo - 13th November 2015
The Moroccan Conseil national des droits de l’Homme (National Human Rights Council, CNDH) has issued a worrying report (for the moment only available in French) on the condition of women in the Kingdom. This report assesses the legal and social state of affairs ten years after the reformation of family law was undertaken, and four […]
Liz Curran - 6th November 2015
In Australia, one woman per week dies from intimate partner violence. By October 2015, 62 women had died due to intimate partner family violence in the calendar year. There have been decades of advocacy challenging the poor responses of authorities, including courts, police, government and lawyers, and raising awareness of the human rights of women […]
Mathias Cheung - 17th August 2015
All men are equal, but some men are more equal than others – others as in women, regrettably. It may not be surprising to find this in a dystopian animal farm, but it is striking to find the slightest suggestion of gender bias in a society like Hong Kong which prides itself on diversity and […]
Tania Sordo Ruz - 12th August 2015
On 31st July 2015, the statistics on the number of children killed at the hands of their fathers during visitation or custody in Spain rose from 24 to 26. These murders are not “regrettable,” as the Minister of Justice called them; these murders are the responsibility of the State. When the judiciary allows visitation or […]
Pratiksha Baxi - 3rd August 2015
In Bombay, two men posing as cops raped a 17-year-old girl and filmed the violence they perpetrated on the phone they stole from her. Her assailants subsequently threatened to release the video. When she registered a criminal complaint, police inspector Vinod Ejjapawar hatched a plan to use the victim as bait. He persuaded her to […]
Juan Pablo Perez Leon Acevedo - 10th June 2015
On 20 April 2015, the Peruvian Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) re-opened an investigation into alleged forced sterilizations of over 2000 persons, mainly peasant and indigenous women. They were allegedly surgically sterilized without their consent through the National Programme on Reproductive Family Planning (NPRFP) (1996-2000) during ex-President Alberto Fujimori´s mandate. Indeed, around 300000 persons went […]