Dr Sofia Graca discusses the connection between Human Rights Day and the ’16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence’ campaign.

Today, the 10th of December, is Human Rights Day; it also marks the end of the  ‘16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence’ campaign, an annual event which starts on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. What links the two and why should we care?

Activists have been claiming the need to pay particular attention to women’s rights as human rights for almost half a century (with for example, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, or CEDAW, adopted in 1979), yet there is still a sense that this is a difficult area to broach. After all, women are human beings, therefore their rights should already be well protected under general human rights law.

There are many instances in which this has been demonstrated not to be the case. Of course, women have the same rights as men to be free form torture, cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment, to have a right to private and family life, but there are violations of human rights that disproportionately affect women and put these into question in a way that does not affect men. This is easily exemplified in the most recent Taliban’s imposed restrictions on women’s freedom of movement or education, in Afghanistan. But Violence Against Women and Girls (that is, that which affects these groups disproportionately) happens all over the world, on a daily basis. Domestic abuse and sexual assault are but two examples of this. They restrict women’s freedoms, safety, access to work and education and have significant personal, social and economic impact. In essence, they are important to be addressed in themselves and they affect us all, as a society.

Human rights policies, legal instruments and case law has moved on from a view in which states should not be held responsible for the acts of individuals but only for their actions as states. The Inter-American International Court of Human Rights in Velazquez-Rodrigues v Honduras and the Inter-American Commission, in Maria da Penha Fernandes v. Brazil make this possible, and instruments such as the Istanbul Convention on ‘preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence’ place obligations on states to act to protect women and girls.

Successive UK governments have put forward strategies to address Violence Against Women and Girls, yet there is still a lot to be done, when the UN Women estimates that ‘one woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by their intimate partner or family member’ and the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) called VAWG recently an epidemic and set out a desire to address it in the same way that it addresses terrorism.

Perhaps it’s time to rethink state accountability for what seem to be the systematic targeting of women by men under a human rights framework. Can we really say that the state is acting with due diligence, and therefore not unlawfully discriminating against women? When the seven out of 10 victims of domestic homicide in the UK in 2022-23 were women? When in 2023-24 more than half of women experienced domestic abuse, stalking, sexual assault and harassment than men? Progress is welcome but the pace is too slow. Do we still want to have the same conversation in another 50 or even 10 years time? If nothing more, this evidences why we should be highlighting days such as Human Rights day and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the connections between both.

Dr Graca is Principal Lecturer with the School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences, and chairs the CCCU Domestic Abuse Hub.