UN Experts: No Perpetrators of Violence Against Women Should Escape Accountability
Tawazon – On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, UN human rights experts warned in a joint statement that violence against women and girls remains alarmingly widespread around the world and the lack of effective access to justice in many countries has become a dangerous setback.
Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, is among the signatories.
Experts said that severe forms of violence, including domestic abuse, sexual assault, harassment, structural discrimination, so-called honor killings and femicide, continue to affect women in many countries. They stressed that no society can achieve real development or stability whille women remain unsafe and deprived of freedom.
According to the statement, access to justice is a fundamental right, victims in many countries face slow, biased or unsafe legal systems. Many women do not report abuse due to fear of retaliation, social stigma, or lack of legal protection. Experts said that many survivors do not report abuse due to fear of retaliation, social stigma, or lack of legal support and in some places, sexual crimes are minimized, which denies victims their right to justice.
The statement highlighted that women and girls from ethnic and religious minorities, migrants, internally displaced persons, rural women, older women, women with disabilities and human rights defenders face even greater risks of violence and injustice. In several countries, forced and child marriage remains a serious problem, depriving girls of education, opportunity, and legal protection.
UN experts reaffirmed that states are obligated under international human rights law to prevent violence, hold perpetrators accountable and provide support to survivors, yet many governments continue to fail in these responsibilities.
The experts warned that wars, humanitarian crises, militarization, declining aid, and environmental degradation are worsenng conditions for women and girls. In some countries, they added, systematic violations of women’s rights may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity, requiring urgent international attention.
The experts warned that wars, humanitarian crises, militarization, declining aid and environmental degradation have further worsened the situation for women and girls. In some countries, systematic violations of women’s rights have reached to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity, requiring urgent global attention.
They stressed that no individual or powerful official should be exempt from accountability, and that judicial systems must remain free from political influence. They said using the suffering of victims for political purposes, must end immediately.
The statement, issued by more than forty UN Human Rights Council experts and special rapporteurs, concluded by expressing solidarity with survivors. It emphasized that survivors voices are essential to exposing discrimination, ending impunity and pushing justice systems, and that “no woman should be left unheard, unprotected, or wwithout justice.”
