Why are we failing to end one of humanity's oldest and most pervasive injustices?

Why are we failing to end one of humanity's oldest and most pervasive injustices?

Ending gender-based violence is human rights imperative

SHOBHA SHUKLA - CNS

Few weeks ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said: "Violence against women is one of humanity's oldest and most pervasive injustices, yet still one of the least acted upon. No society can call itself fair, safe or healthy while half its population lives in fear. Ending this violence is not only a matter of policy; it is a matter of dignity, equality and human rights."

A woman's right to live free from violence is upheld by international agreements such as the legally binding UN treaty, formally called as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 1979, as well as by the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, among others.

But recent data shows that despite violence against women and girls being the most persistent and under-addressed human rights violations and crises, the number of women who experience it in their lifetime, has NOT changed much in last 26 years (since 2000).

1 in 3 women continue to experience partner or sexual violence during their lifetime year after year with barely any change in this figure since 2000. The annual decline has been abysmally and painfully too slow: 0.2% over the past two decades. These figures are under-reported ones because of high degree of stigma, fear and other barriers girls, women and other people in all their diversities face in reporting gender-based violence. Emotional violence is among the least reported.

Not all countries have comprehensive legislation addressing domestic violence

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