Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 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 exercise due diligence and to fight pushbacks on gender equality.

The statement not only acknowledges that women and girls everywhere continue to be subjected to multiple forms of gender-based violence but that the spaces where this violence takes place have also multiplied. Encouraged by anonymity and automation, online and technology-facilitated violence against women is pervasive and many forms of violence occurring offline are replicated, and even intensified, through digital means. To address this phenomenon, the Council of Europe Expert Group on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) published the General Recommendation No.1 on the digital dimension of violence against women.

Intersecting forms of discrimination not only aggravate the intensity and frequency of violence but also sharpen the impunity that exists against it and increase societal and individual readiness to allow it. Experts underline that women and girls the world over are still at risk of being killed and subject to violence, intimidation and harassment when they speak out just for being women and girls, even though they represent half of the world’s population.

The statement reads: “Women and girls around the world need to be heard; their voices should not be silenced, nor their experiences go unnoticed […] Women and girls’ agency and participation in all processes that affect their rights and lives need to be promoted and protected at all costs. States should ensure and create an enabling environment for women to exercise their fundamental freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly and public participation free from intimidation and attacks. States must exercise their due diligence obligation and protect women human rights defenders, activists and women’s organizations who are regularly harassed, intimidated and subjected to violence for defending their rights and promoting equality […] It is, and should be, a public policy and a human rights priority.”

Through this statement, its authors are calling on the collective effort by States, non-state actors and other stakeholders to stop the reversal of progress made in ending violence against women across the world and to counter the backlash against gender equality and the tenets of human rights-based legislation and governance.

Joint statement - International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Press Release – GREVIO’s Recommendation No. 1 on the Digital Dimension of Violence Against Women