Are we there yet?: Can indicators provide a route for comparative assessment of state responses to VAW

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Are we there yet? Can indicators provide a route
for comparative assessment of state responses to
VAW

• Liz Kelly
• Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit
• London Metropolitan University

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Key themes

• Setting the context
• Defining terms
• Challenges
• Attempts to date
• Promising directions

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Mainstreaming Gender into Human Rights

• Gender marginal in development of human rights
• VAW marginal to equality in CEDAW
• Feminist activism over 15 years to link HR,
  gender and womens equality
• VAW central in dual key approach
• Womens rights in mainstream HR discourse
• Transform HR through recognition of state
  responsibility for prevention and redress with
  respect to gendered violations by private actors

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Key Events

• The Vienna Declaration on Human Rights, 1993
• UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
  Against Women, 1993
• Beijing Platform for Action
• Special Rapporteur on VAW its Causes and
  Consequences

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Call for indicators

• Beijing10
• Special Rapporteur
• Measuring VAW
• Assessing state progress
• Secretary Generals report on VAW
• EU
• Begun in 1998, various presidencies

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Defining terms - VAW

• the term violence against women means any act
  of gender-based violence that results in or is
  likely to result in physical, sexual or
  psychological harm or suffering to women,
  including threats of such acts, coercion or
  arbitrary deprivations of liberty, whether
  occurring in public or private life.
• Violence against women shall be understood to
  encompass but not be limited to, the following
• Physical, sexual and psychological violence
  occurring in the family, including battering,
  sexual abuse of female children in the household,
  dowry-related violence, marital rape, female
  genital mutilation and other traditional
  practices harmful to women, non-spousal violence
  and violence related to exploitation
• Physical, sexual and psychological violence
  occurring within the general community, including
  rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and
  intimidation at work, in educational institutions
  and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced
  prostitution
• Physical, sexual and psychological violence
  perpetrated or condoned by the State, wherever it
  occurs.

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Defining terms - indicators

• Robust, valid and reliable (Walby, 2005)
• A number, proportion, percentage, rate, trend
• Summarise complex data
• Link to quantitative data
• Unambiguous
• Basis to assess change
• Relevant to multiple audiences
• Available at regular intervals
• Comparable across social groups and states

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Challenges

• Common global definitions
• Analytic frames for local variations
• All or some forms of VAW
• Number of indicators
• Over/under inclusive
• Starting points
• Resources and capacities of states

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Current EU recommendations

• VAW (IPV)
• No. of female victims
• Types of victim support
• Prevention measures
• Sexual harassment
• Percentage of employees reporting
• Percentage of public/private bodies with policy
• Percentage of public/private bodies with
  procedures to sanction perpetrators

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Promising directions 1 Femicide index

• Intimate partner violence
• Men killing women
• Women killing abusive men
• Sexual murder
• Honour killings
• Women in prostitution

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Promising directions 2 Attrition

• The proportion of cases that fail to result in
  prosecution and conviction
• It has a number of layers, and timings - with
  slight variations depending on legal systems
• Decisions of women and girls about reporting and
  staying with process
• Skill and decision making of police
• Investigation
• Prosecution
• Trial process

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Mainstreaming FGM/C

• Module in Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS),
  at least 17 countries.
• UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
  rapid an d reliable where
• lack data
• Prevalence of FGM/C by age cohorts 15-49
• Key indicator cohorts in five year bands
• FGM/C status of all daughters
• Current age of daughters as well as on the
  age at which they were cut
• Percentage of closed FGM/C (infibulation,
  sealing) and open FGM/C (excision)
• For women and daughters
• Performer of FGM/C.
• Support of, or opposition to FGM/C by women
• and men age 15-49
• Indictors for programming
•  Public declaration of intent
• Community-based surveillance mechanisms for girls
  at risk
• Drop in prevalence

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Other fruitful routes

• Attitude surveys
• Eurobarometer
• Common data collection tools
• UK SARCs
• Shelters
• Intervention Projects
• Routine enquiry current rates and health
  impacts
• Accident and emergency
• Pre and post natal

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Not there yet, but the journey is getting
interesting