On 12 March, the Platform of Independent Expert Mechanisms on Discrimination and Violence against Women (EDVAW Platform) organised, in collaboration with UN Women, a side event on the margins of the 70th Commission of the Status of Women focussing on women's access to justice free from retaliation.
At the initiative of the Chair of the EDVAW Platform, GREVIO President Maria-Andriani Kostopoulou, five of the seven mechanisms which this Platform brings together shared examples of legal retaliation as identified in their work, regionally and globally. These range from criminal counter complaints of slander or defamation to retaliation in family courts where restrictions on custody and visitation rights with their children are placed on women after reporting violence. Legal retaliation may also target those who support women victims or women’s rights defenders, such as family members, lawyers, journalists, politicians and civil society organisations.
The impact is clear: women refrain from reporting or seeking their rights which in turn sustains perpetrator impunity. Legal retaliation against women also reverses victimhood, reproduces gender stereotypes and turns legal arenas into places where women fear further abuse. In addition, there is an economic and psychological element to legal retaliation where endless legal claims protract litigation and justice becomes costly. Whether in the African region, the Latin-American region, in Europe and globally, the panellists agreed that the widespread legal retaliation they see in their daily work undermines public trust in legal systems and needs to be addressed.
Overcoming the fragmentation among court systems, investing in integrated service models for victims of violence that include legal aspects and ensuring comprehensive legal aid were mentioned as some of the ways in which to reduce the possibility for legal retaliation against women. Understanding women’s access to justice not as formal access but as access to gender-sensitive procedures run by professionals aware of the risks of legal retaliation against women was highlighted as a way forward.
Under GREVIO’s Presidency of the EDVAW Platform, it will further conceptualise the issue and offer guidance later in the year.
