Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Issue

Abstract

Part I of this paper examines why domestic violence was not analyzed traditionally as a human rights issue. It discusses the three independent though interrelated changes that occurred to begin to make such an analysis possible: the expansion of the application of state responsibility; the recognition of domestic violence as widespread and largely unprocesuted (brought about by greater public and international recognition of the daily violence experienced by women); and the understanding that the systematic discriminatory non-prosecution of domestic violence constitutes a violation of the right to equal protection under international law. Part II describes the first practical application of this evolving approach in Brazil where the presence of a broad-based womens movement made it possible to collect the data necessary to support an analysis of the governments responsibility for domestic violence. Finally Part III explores the value and limitations of the human rights approach to combating domestic violence. We conclude that the human rights approach can be a powerful tool to combat domestic violence but that there are currently both practical and methodological limitations--in part related to the use of the equal protection framework to assign state responsibility for domestic violence--that are problematic and require further analysis to make the approach more effective. (excerpt)