Israel / OPT: UN women’s rights expert calls for peace
process with full participation of women
GENEVA (26 September 2016) – Reducing violence against
women and promoting gender equality are two underused tools in bridging
fragmented and divided communities and achieving peace, said United Nations
human rights expert Dubravka Šimonović, at the end of her first official visit*
to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory/State of Palestine.
“I would like to call both sides to start a new peace
process in which women would fully participate and even take the lead and in
which international human rights law and humanitarian law would be applied
jointly,” the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women said.
“My visit takes place after a long absence of any other
UN Special Rapporteur visits and I hope that this translates the willingness of
both governments to strengthen their efforts to eliminate violence against
women and to uphold women’s rights in public and private sphere in line with
their international human rights obligations and commitments,” Ms. Šimonović
underscored.
During her twelve-day visit to examine the overall
situation of violence against women and girls, and gather first-hand
information from women survivors of violence, the expert met with
representatives of each Government, the relevant authorities and civil society
organisations, as well as with UN officials. She also visited shelters for
victims of domestic violence and met with women victims of violence.
In Israel, Ms. Šimonović visited Jerusalem, Tel Aviv,
Beer-Sheva, Haifa and Nazareth. In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, she
travelled to Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron, Jericho, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
The Special Rapporteur will present reports with final
findings and recommendations to the UN Human Rights Council in June 2017.
Israel
A number of legislative measures have been taken to
improve legal prohibitions and preventive measures in the sphere of violence
against women, the UN expert noted. “Amendments were made to the law of rape
and sexual harassment. I commend the current work towards ratification of the
Istanbul convention on prevention of violence against women.”
Ms. Šimonović pointed out that specific groups of women
in Israel, including women from the Palestinian minority (including Bedouin women), asylum-seekers,
refugees, and women belonging to other minority communities face accrued
and multiple form of discrimination and heightened risk of violence.
“Bedouin communities located in unrecognized villages,
could not acquire building permits or plans for housing, forcing them to build
their houses illegally,” she said. “They are therefore at risk of forced
evictions and home demolitions, to which women are particularly affected.”
“I have visited a Bedouin community and witnessed the
lack of water, sanitation, and electricity and that sadly boys and girls
pertaining to these communities do not have access to preschool education, due,
among other reasons to the long distance between their homes and schools and
the risks they face on their way,” the expert noted.
The effect of occupation
“The prolonged occupation has had differentiated impact
on women and girls, in connection with traditional and embedded patriarchal
social norms,” the Special Rapporteur noted.
House demolitions, either in the context of lack of
building permits or on punitive grounds and forced evictions have a specific
and gendered impact on women.
Losing their homes has created instability and often has
resulted in living in relative’s home, often overcrowded. This has increased
pressure on families and lead to violence against women. Search operations,
particularly at night, pose specific problems for women. “A woman reported to
me for example that she was sleeping all dressed in case she would be woken up
by night raids and would need to be seen by soldiers.” Ms. Šimonović said
The Special Rapporteur heard first hand accounts from a
broad range of women, including women who have served time in detention, and
from those impacted by settler violence. “I have visited the Qurduba School in
Hebron and met with teachers and their pupils who told me about being the
subject of constant attacks, threat and humiliation from neighbouring settlers
but also from some members of the Israeli Security Forces who appear to condone
such violence,” she stated.
“Settler violence also translates in the loss of
livelihood for the family, girls being harassed on the way to school to the
extent that their families prefer not to send them to school. Settlers’
violence needs to be met with accountability, which seems to be lacking,” the
expert stressed.
OPT/State of Palestine
While recognizing the clear linkage between the prolonged
occupation and violence against women, the expert noted that “the occupation
does not exonerate the State of Palestine from its due diligence obligation to
prevent, investigate, punish and provide remedies for acts of gender-based
violence under the areas and persons under its jurisdiction.” She commended the
accession to the CEDAW convention without reservations. I am confident that such accession and the
reporting to CEDAW monitoring body will play an important role in the
harmonization of the current outdated legislative framework and bring it in
line with international norms and standards”.
Despite the existence of some laws condemning violence,
their implementation is challenged due to the absence of a formal governmental
authority in specific areas of the occupied Palestinian territory. “In this
regard,” Ms. Šimonović said, “the occupation is a real obstacle to the
fulfillment of the State’s due diligence obligation to prevent violence against
women in areas where it has not full jurisdiction, because of the fragmentation
of the areas under different control.”
Sexual violence is also of concern. First of all, because
victims of sexual violence are stigmatized in Palestinian society, but also
because a perpetrator of rape can in some cases be absolved if he marries the
victim.
“Within the occupied Palestinian territories, many deeply
embedded forms of violence against women
are petrified in a context of prolonged occupation, among which, domestic
violence, early marriages, sexual violence, including rape and incest, as well
as killings in the name of ‘honour’”, she said.
“In Gaza , I was very touched to meet with different
groups of women affected by the three
consecutive conflicts and the
current blockade and have seen their
great impact on women’s life, being subjected to the loss of homes and
family members and being subjected to inherited forms of discrimination
and violence, in particular in Gaza, due
to the blockade that limits their mobility and privacy, but also their access
to adequate services needed for women victims of violence,” the UN Special
Rapporteur added.
(*) Check the Special Rapporteur’s end-of-mission
statement:
Arabic:
ENDS
Ms. Dubravka Šimonović (Croatia) was appointed as Special
Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences by the UN
Human Rights Council in June 2015, to recommend measures, ways and means, at
the national, regional and international levels, to eliminate violence against
women and its causes, and to remedy its consequences. Ms. Šimonović has been
member of the CEDAW Committee from 2002 to 2014. She headed the Human Rights
Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia and
was the Minister Plenipotentiary at the Permanent Mission of Croatia to the UN
in New York. She was also Ambassador to the OSCE and UN in Vienna. She
co-chaired the Ad hoc Committee (CAHVIO) of the Council of Europe that
elaborated the Convention on Preventing and Combatting Violence against Women
and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention).She has a PhD in Family Law and
published books and articles on human rights and women’s rights. Learn more,
log on to:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Women/SRWomen/Pages/SRWomenIndex.aspx
The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the
Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest
body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name
of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that
address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of
the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not
UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from
any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
UN Human Rights, Country Page – Israel: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/MENARegion/Pages/ILIndex.aspx
UN Human Rights, Country Page – the Occupied Palestinian
Territory: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Countries/MENARegion/Pages/PSIndex.aspx
For further information and media requests, please
contact:
Karin Hechenleitner Schacht (+41 22 917 9636 /
khechenleitner@ohchr.org ), Nathalie Stadelmann (+41 22 917 9104 /
nstadelmann@ohchr.org) and Mr. Bahaaeldin Sadi (+972 599676123 /
bsadi@ohchr.org)
You can access this press release at:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20584&LangID=E
For media inquiries related to other UN independent
experts:
Xabier Celaya – Media Unit (+ 41 22 917 9383 /
xcelaya@ohchr.org)
For your news websites and social media:
Multimedia
content & key messages relating to our news releases are available on UN
Human Rights social media channels, listed below. Please tag us using the
proper handles:
Twitter: @UNHumanRights
Facebook: unitednationshumanrights
Instagram: unitednationshumanrights
Google+: unitednationshumanrights
Youtube: unohchr
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar