Analyzing The Effectiveness Of The Concept Of State Responsibility Under The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) With Respect To Combating Gender Based Violence

Abstract

The Committee on CEDAW has made it clear that GBV is a critical obstacle to the achievement of substantive equality between women and men and to the enjoyment by women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. In a country like Kenya for example gender based violence is rampant and is ranked as among the highest in the world. The Gender Recovery Violence Centre in Kenya reports that between 40-47 percent of Kenyan women experience GBV in their lifetime . This is a high number and one must wonder the role the government plays in ensuring that these high rates of GBV are reduced or brought completely to an end. This is the basis of this paper for it seeks to analyze the role that States like Kenya play in combating GBV by looking in depth at the concept of state responsibility as envisaged under general comment number 35 of CEDAW. The paper in doing so finds that it is apt that general comment number 35 of CEDAW has put in place measures to ensure that states are held responsible in combating GBV. However there are challenges to fully ensuring that this concept of state responsibility works. The paper hence finds that patriarchy still is the main factor which acts as a hindrance to completely eradicating GBV as due to the very common patriarchal societies women’s rights including eradicating GBV have been put on the backseat. The paper gives examples of how women’s rights have been put on the backseat by drawing an interplay between Saudi Arabia’s draconian laws against women and the fact that in spite of the laws Saudi Arabia still gets a nod from 19 powerful countries in the world to host a summit which will have impacts for women worldwide. The paper further elaborates that the mere fact that Saudi Arabia has been given a nod to host a summit as important as the G20 proves that the rule of law worldwide is being blatantly disregarded by world leaders and that this disregard to the rule of law causes a ripple effect worldwide and this ripple effect makes other important rights like women’s rights to be at risk of not being advanced. The paper also makes a point that capitalism is a driving factor to both state and non state actors in disregarding rule of law issues. The paper also depicts that concepts like state sovereignty and state immunity have made effectuating the state responsibility concept under general comment number 35 a hard task and here the paper uses Saudi Arabia as an example in showing how Saudi Arabia uses the state sovereignty and immunity concepts to disregard the provisions of general comment number 35 of CEDAW. The paper concludes by giving a strong recommendation that in order to successfully combat GBV and bring into fruitution the provisions of general comment number 35 of CEDAW then patriarchy must be uprooted completely and that rule of law must be obeyed to the maximum. The paper acknowledges the important work that women human rights activists and defenders play every day in ensuring that women rights are not derogated and ends by simply giving them the hope to continue fighting for it is in their daily fight to advance women’s rights and in this case fight to combat GBV that strides however slow are made.