On the International Women’s Day, the UN and regional experts, including members of the Platform of Independent Expert Mechanisms on the Elimination of Discrimination and Violence against Women (EDVAW Platform), have issued a joint statement calling on States to reaffirm the existing legal frameworks and to allocate greater efforts towards their effective implementation.
The joint statement not only acknowledges that women and girls across the world continue to be subjected to gender-based violence, but that the international and regional legal frameworks offer the tools needed to stop all forms of violence against women and girls.
Over the past decades, the international community has established important normative frameworks on gender equality and non-discrimination. These conventions include the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará), the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), and the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention).
Together, these legal instruments increase the protection standards for women and girls. Through this statement, its authors are calling on the international community to reaffirm the existing legal frameworks and to allocate greater efforts towards their effective implementation in order not to erode the established rights that these frameworks protect during the on-going epidemic of violence against women, particularly during times of conflict.
