On 23 November 2015, the newly appointed Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (SRVAW) Ms. Dubravka Šimonović called on all States to establish a ‘Femicide Watch’. Ms. Šimonović explained the need for State reports dedicated to the issue of the gender-related killing of women, particularly those reports which highlight ‘any failure of protection’ of women within the State. What exactly does ‘femicide’ mean, and why do we need a femicide watch? What obligation, if any, do States have to protect women under international law?
The term ‘femicide’ first entered the lexicon of the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) after the Secretary General’s 2006 in-depth study on all forms of violence against women, but it was not until the tenure of Rashida Manjoo, appointed August 2009, that it became mainstream. Manjoo convened a meeting on 12 October 2011 on the matter of gender-motivated killings of women, which led to a report before the Human Rights Council (HRC) in June 2012. Manjoo’s collection of experts looked at the origins of the word ‘femicide’, which was originally utilized in the 1970s to combat the ‘gender-neutral term of homicide’ in relation to violence against women. Regardless of any cultural or regional trends, the experts agreed, femicide includes all forms of sexist killings; that is, the murder of a woman or girl specifically because of their womanhood or girlhood.
This discussion led to the publication of Manjoo’s third thematic report to the HRC, in which she covered her country visits and the alarming lack of data that existed on acts of femicide in the majority of member States. This was reiterated in subsequent reports and country visits leading up to Manjoo’s end of term and Ms. Šimonović’s appeal on International Women’s Day in November 2015. Ms. Šimonović called for the reports to be issued each year on November 25, and to include the number of women killed that year and their relationship to the perpetrator. Looking at relationships is crucial, particularly because States are often guilty of ignoring or downplaying violence that occurs within the home.
Why do we need a femicide watch? One only needs to look across Ireland to see the impact that tracking gender-related killings can have on the State’s obligation to protect its female citizens. Two decades before Ms. Šimonović called on States to monitor femicide within their borders, the Irish domestic violence resource centre Women’s Aid began monitoring gender-related deaths in Ireland. The findings were released in November 2016 in a report entitled ‘Behind Closed Doors: 20 years of the Women’s Aid Femicide Monitoring Project 1996-2016’. Had the report come out prior to Ms. Šimonović’s statement, it is highly likely that she would have utilized the Women’s Aid report as an example of best practice for the monitoring of femicide. The report details the stories of 209 women, 131 of whom were killed in their own homes, who died at the hands of their partners (54%) or male family members (33%) in Ireland between 1996-2016. ‘Behind Closed Doors’ is the latest effort by advocates to ‘prevent further loss of life by increasing protection for women in society’. The data collected by Women’s Aid was part of their submission to the Irish Government regarding the Domestic Violence Bill 2017, which includes long-awaited steps towards a more accountable legal system that will bring justice to victims of femicide and domestic violence.
The lack of accountability of governments is a contributing factor to high rates of femicide across the globe. Perpetrators of femicide are generally never prosecuted for their crimes, and media and the government are loathe to use the term femicide. This is particularly evident in media coverage of murder-suicides, including the cases of Clodagh Hawe and Kitty Fitzgerald, two Irish women who were murdered by their husbands. They were almost completely erased from the narratives in the following weeks, narratives that included declarations of the men as ‘pillars of the community’, and ‘tragic stories’. Ms. Šimonović highlighted this unfortunate truth that ‘weaknesses of national prevention systems…result in misidentification [of victims], concealment [of crimes] and underreporting of gender-motivated killings thus perpetuating impunity for such killings’. States are not viewing the killings of women as important outside of the fact that they contribute to national murder statistics, and this is where the problem lies.
The 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women calls upon States to ensure that they are complying with their obligations to protect women just as they follow their obligations to protect the right to life, equality, and non-discrimination. In Opuz v. Turkey, a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2009, the ECHR made a landmark decision against Turkey, ruling that the State had failed to protect the applicant and her mother from attacks by her spouse, despite a demonstrated history of violence by the perpetrator. This added to the international human rights case law, as CEDAW had previously ruled against Austria in 2005 in two cases (here and here) related to deceased victims of domestic violence, ruling that the Austrian state had a positive obligation ‘to protect women from domestic violence [that] extends beyond passing laws’.
Ms. Šimonović reiterated her call for Femicide Watch reports at the 61st Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW61) in March 2017, and emphasized the role that the State must play in ensuring that laws are passed protecting women, but more importantly that these laws are enforced. Aside from the immediate acts of protection against violence, the State’s responses to threats and killings of women too often involve ‘victim-blaming, blockages of justice and effective remedies, and corruption by State officials’. States must take responsibility for their inadequate responses towards victims and their families. Femicide Watch reports have the potential to change the way that States deal with gender-related killings of women, and it is essential for member States to realize this influence and utilize it to protect their most vulnerable citizens.
** This was originally an academic blog post I completed for my International Human Rights Law module while completing my masters at University College Dublin in Spring 2017. Thanks to Suzanne Egan and Liam Thornton for all of your guidance with this piece and more over the year!
Julia Canney 