Making progress in elimination of gender stereotypes in the context of gender-based violence - The role of the CEDAW Committee

Abstract

Over the last two decades the CEDAW Committee’s recognition of gender-based violence as a form of discrimination against women has made a major impact on how other international human rights organizations, including the Council of Europe and the European Union, approach this problem. As a result, the Council of Europe adopted the ‘Istanbul Convention’ on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, while the European Union strengthened the protection of victims of crimes in the Victims Directive. The CEDAW Committee’s views on the duty to eliminate wrongful gender stereotypes established by article 5 (a) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination confirmed the binding legal nature of this obligation. However, the existence of an independent ‘justiciable’ right not to be subject to gender stereotyping, which subordinates women to men and assigns them a fixed gender role, has not yet been fully ascertained. The article argues that the creation of parallel international regimes of human rights in the area of gender-based violence does not undermine the role of the CEDAW Convention as a Women’s Convention, but enhances the complementarity of various human rights instruments.