Human Rights and Violence Against Women: Campo Algodonero Case

Abstract

Abstract: The present article seeks to analyze human rights from a gender perspective. To do so, it goes back to the past to explain the development of the society of rights and women's rights. The analysis starts from the premise that human rights are social products and therefore will reflect and represent the values and interests of the society that produced them, in this case, capitalist society. One of the values of this society is patriarchy and the idea of the superiority of men as a social actor in relation to women. This value is represented in human rights that nevertheless have universality as one of its characteristics: the idea that all people are subjects of such rights independently of any identities. Therefore, the legal text in which human rights were coined affirms an equality that does not exist in practice, since women are violated and their rights are violated every day, in addition to the gender inequality present throughout the world. As an example and materialization of this reality, the Campo Algodonero Case, introduced to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, appears as the first case of the Court to mention femicide, showing the vulnerability of women’s life and integrity.