Murdered by relatives for "shaming" the family by, for instance, wanting to marry someone of their own choice or being raped;

Horribly disfigured by acid thrown on them by a man they rebuffed;

Sold into debt bondage by their parents;

Sold into forced marriage or prostitution;

Burned to death by their in-laws because their dowry is too small;

The list goes on.

Women's rights a modern concept
Women have been victims of these kinds of crimes for millennia. The notion that women's rights are human rights is a very modern idea, taking root only in the last 30 years or so.

In 1979, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the first such document in history. An international bill of rights for women, it describes discrimination against women as "any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field." As of February 2002, 73 countries had signed CEDAW (among the non-signatories are the U.S. and Britain), although many of them do not enforce it.

CEDAW was expanded in 1993 with the Declaration on Elimination of Violence against Women. It defines violence against women as "any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life."

Under this declaration, the state shares responsibility for violence against women, whether the perpetrator was an agent of the state or not, explains Sheila Dauer, director of Amnesty International

BACK TO ARCHIVES