Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
International law
Most criminologists research only within the realm of domestic criminal law and
criminal procedure and national or local criminal justice systems, with some
exceptions (e.g. Savelsberg, 2010; Hagan & Rymond-Richmond, 2009; Rothe &
Mullins, 2006). Criminal justice scholars, reformers and practitioners who are
interested in women, crime and justice are used to conceptualizing women, crime
and justice at the level of domestic criminal justice systems, by studying the inter-
action between criminal law and the various organizations used within a country
to enforce, apply or interpret it: police, prosecutors, courts, corrections and victim
services. Feminist criminologists have leveled many criticisms of the criminal
justice system as a gendered institution – one largely created by men and for men.
They have found it unresponsive to women’s issues – be it through discriminatory
laws, inaccessible police and court services, harsh prison regimes or professions
that fail to recognize women criminal justice professionals and incorporate their
viewpoints. For most criminal justice scholars, analysis and reform of criminal
justice means working within police organizations, the judiciary or corrections or
working at local, state and national levels influencing legislative or executive
decision making.
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52 Global forces
origin in Austria, who, despite repeatedly seeking criminal justice remedies, were
eventually murdered by their husbands. The CEDAW Committee found that the
government of Austria had not implemented its legislation well. As a result, Aus-
tria put new measures in place and increased funding for the implementation of
the law (UN Women, 2011, p. 18). This case is representative of the increasing
responsibility of the state to perform ‘due diligence’ – to apply a standard of
care – with respect to preventing and responding to cases of domestic violence.
The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially
Women and Children, in the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized
Crime, was adopted by the General Assembly in 2000 and went into force in
2003. It defines human trafficking and makes special reference to protection of
women and children. We shall examine it in more detail in Chapter 6.
Using ad hoc international tribunals established after conflict, such as the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the
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Law, human rights, and organizations 53
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54 Global forces
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Law, human rights, and organizations 55
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Decla-
ration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language,
religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth
or other status.
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56 Global forces
Other articles in the UDHR establish rights that are relevant to this text, such as
access to justice, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment and peace, safety
and security.
Article 16 of the UDHR says:
1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality
or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled
to equal rights as to marriage during marriage and at its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the
intending spouses.
And finally Article 17 says, “Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special
care and assistance.”
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights again
guarantees freedom from discrimination according to sex and the equal right of
men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the equal
right of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil and political rights and
guarantees equality before the law.
The International Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees rights to
each child within its jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, regardless of
the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, color, sex, language,
religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, dis-
ability, birth or other status. It asks states parties to take measures to ensure that
the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the
basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions or beliefs of the child’s parents,
legal guardians or family members.
These guarantees pervade other instruments and guidelines dealing with
women, crime and justice.
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Law, human rights, and organizations 57
The Human Rights Council also works with UN special rapporteurs, special
representatives, independent experts and working groups that monitor, advise and
report on thematic issues or human rights in specific countries. Special rappor-
teurs and working groups conduct country visits, act on individual cases and
broader issues by sending reports on violations or abuses to states and others,
conduct studies and convene expert consultations, assist in the development of
international human rights standards, engage in advocacy, increase public aware-
ness and advise on technical assistance. They report annually to the Human
Rights Council.
Of the thirty-six thematic special rapporteurs, two are particularly relevant to
this text: Joy Ngozi Ezeilo (Nigeria) is the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in
persons, especially in women and children; and Rashida Manjoo is the Special
Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences. Under the
same procedures that govern special rapporteurs are working groups. There is cur-
rently a working group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and
in practice. Depending on the particular expertise and zealousness of the special
rapporteurs, they can be quite instrumental in achieving justice for women.
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58 Global forces
The CSW consists of one representative from each of the 45 member states
elected by ECOSOC on the basis of geographical distribution: 13 members from
Africa, 11 from Asia, 9 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 8 from western
Europe and other states and 4 from eastern Europe.
public sphere as well as the private sphere and recognized the role that culture and
religion play in undermining human rights. While not expressly mentioning vio-
lence against women, CEDAW prohibits it in its guarantees against sex discrimi-
nation. The recommendations of the CEDAW Committee, which interprets and
enforces CEDAW, clearly envision violence against women as prohibited by the
convention (General Recommendation No. 19, 11th session, 1992).
The only Western developed country not to have ratified CEDAW is the United
States. President Carter signed CEDAW but it has never been introduced on the
Senate floor. It coincided historically with the failed Equal Rights Amendment as
well as with heated debates about abortion. Many of the reservations held about
CEDAW have since diminished or vanished, and many hope that CEDAW will be
ratified in the second term of the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and, most recently, Secretary of State John Kerry have both been
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Law, human rights, and organizations 59
supporters of CEDAW. The failure of the United States to ratify CEDAW makes
many question the US commitment to women’s human rights both internally and
abroad. The US Department of State now has an Ambassador-at-Large for Global
Women’s Issues, but it seems hypocritical to many for the United States to be
giving lessons to other countries that it does not follow at home.
The CEDAW Committee, an expert body established in 1982, is composed of
23 experts on women’s issues from around the world. The committee monitors
the progress of women made in those countries that are the states parties to the
CEDAW. At each of its sessions, which alternate between Geneva and New York,
the committee reviews reports submitted by the states parties. These reports
recount action taken to improve the situation of women and are presented by
government representatives. In discussions with these officials, the CEDAW
experts comment on the reports and obtain additional information. The committee
also makes recommendations on any issue affecting women to which it believes
the states parties in general should focus more attention.
The 23 members of the CEDAW Committee, acknowledged as experts “of high
moral standing and competence in the field covered by the Convention” (Arti-
cle 17, paragraph 1 of CEDAW), are elected by states parties to CEDAW. These
elections have to meet the convention’s demands for geographical distribution in
membership and the requirement that CEDAW members represent “different
forms of civilization as well as principal legal systems” (Article 17, paragraph 1).
UN Women
In 2010, the UN General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations
entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women came
about as part of the UN reform agenda, thanks to the work of the feminist activist
community, which we will discuss in Chapter 4. It merges and builds on the
important work of four previously separate parts of the UN system: the Division
for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the International Research and Training
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Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), the Office of the Special
Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI) and the United
Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
UN Women supports intergovernmental bodies, such as the CSW, in formulat-
ing policies, standards and norms. It helps member states implement these stand-
ards, by providing technical and financial support to those countries that request
it, working with civil society in partnership. Finally, UN Women holds the UN
system accountable for its own commitments on gender equality, through regular
monitoring. UN Women’s first executive director was former President of Chile
Michelle Bachelet. Its current director is Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka from South
Africa. UN Women has a number of priority areas, including peace and security,
violence against women, political participation, economic empowerment and
HIV/AIDS.
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60 Global forces
The CCPCJ develops, monitors and reviews the implementation of the UN crime
prevention and criminal justice program and facilitates the coordination of its
activities. The CCPCJ provides substantive and organizational direction for the
UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, which is held every
5 years. The CCPCJ acts as the governing body of the UN Crime Prevention and
Criminal Fund, which provides resources for promoting technical assistance in
crime prevention and criminal justice carried out by the UN Office on Drugs and
Crime. The CCPCJ consists of one representative from the 40 member states
elected by ECOSOC for 3-year terms.
The CCPCJ is assisted by the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Pro-
gram Network, which consists of a number of interregional, regional and national
institutes. (For example, the National Institute of Justice in the United States
contributes to the work of the Program Network, as does the Australian Institute
of Criminology.)
Copyright © 2014. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.
The aspect of the CCPCJ’s work that relates the most to this text is the
propagation of standards and norms in criminal justice (see Compendium of
United Nations Standards and Norms in Crime Prevention and Criminal Jus-
tice, www.unodc.org/unodc/en/justice-and-prison-reform/compendium.html).
Since the 1950s, the CCPCJ has regularly issued standards in a variety of areas
(police, prosecution, courts, torture and inhuman forms of punishment, pris-
ons, alternatives to imprisonment, victims’ rights, juvenile justice, capital
punishment, crime prevention, violence against women), and most of these
norms make references to equality between the sexes, to the need to abolish
discriminatory practices or to the need to respond to women in a gender-
sensitive way. The most recent addition to the collection of standards and
norms are the Bangkok Rules (UN General Assembly, 2010), which we will
discuss in Chapter 8.
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Law, human rights, and organizations 61
Security Council
It seems strange to discuss the UN Security Council last, but even though this is
a very important and powerful mechanism within the United Nations, its work
does not really encompass women or criminal justice. However, because of its
role in mediating conflict, in recent years it has made strides in the area of
women, conflict and postconflict. In 2000, the Security Council adopted UNSC
Resolution 1325, a landmark on women, peace and security. More recently,
UNSCR 1820, adopted in 2008, affirms that sexual violence in armed conflict can
be a war crime, a crime against humanity or genocide (paragraph 4). Two addi-
tional resolutions, 1888 and 1889, both adopted in 2009, strengthen both
UNSCRs 1325 and 1820. In 2010, the Security Council approved UNSCR 1960,
and in 2013, UNSCR 2106. This collection of resolutions has been key to linking
women to peace and security issues, preventing and demanding accountability for
the use of sexual violence in armed conflict, involving women in peacebuilding
and recruiting more women peacekeepers (to be discussed in Chapter 5).
The international human rights framework is largely unknown to criminal jus-
tice scholars and students, yet presents a sophisticated mechanism for ensuring
gender equality and justice for women worldwide. Only through such intergov-
ernmental machinery can gender equality be a universal goal. Familiarity and
engagement with the bodies that draft, interpret and enforce international human
rights law and with the texts that specify nondiscriminatory provisions is a grow-
ing necessity for the international community of scholars concerned about women
as offenders, victims and criminal justice professionals. Of equal interest is inter-
national humanitarian law and international criminal law as instruments for
reform and redress of crimes against women.
see activism as a part of the scholarly enterprise. This chapter discusses global
women’s activism broadly and as it relates to women, crime and justice. Many
feminist criminologists are scholar-activists, either overtly within their research,
pedagogical or practitioner settings or accompanying these activities, through
their support of political or service organizations or through consulting with gov-
ernmental organizations, providing knowledge or policy input as outsiders.
Because criminology is still focused mainly on the local or national level, most
pursue their activism at those levels. However, increasingly, feminist criminolo-
gists are interested in activism that takes place beyond their borders. Global
women’s activism has a rich history that has been explored by scholars in political
science, women’s studies and social movements. It has many lessons for feminist
criminologists. There is also much that feminist criminology can contribute to
global women’s activism.
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62 Global forces
Activists try to affect political or social change. They work generally outside
of authority structures such as institutions, in order to hold them accountable to
their mandates or to change them, their laws or their policies. Activists also work
directly with other people to change attitudes and raise awareness of certain
issues. Sometimes, activists work to change the status quo; other times, activists
work to stop change to the status quo. There are many ways that activists work.
Quite simply, they organize and mobilize people so as to draw attention to social
problems or injustices. They protest and hold rallies, sit-ins, marches and boy-
cotts. They observe, bear witness and gather testimony. They research, monitor
and fact check. They educate and train. And they provide alternative services to
those of governments or the private sector, either by charging for them or fund-
raising to offer them.
Feminist activists work to achieve rights for women or gender equality. They
believe that most authority structures are biased against women’s interests, either
blatantly or subtly, through institutionalized sexism. Society, in general, is sexist
as well. Women need to be empowered to change it, and men also need to change,
because in the long run, sexism is harmful to everyone. Because injustice is often
masked as something else, much work needs to be done to bring inequalities and
abuses to light and to raise consciousness so that people work to challenge injus-
tice. For example, much of gender injustice results from the idea that women’s
subordinated role is naturally or culturally appropriate, or simply ‘tradition’.
Most feminist activists work in what are termed grassroots organizations –
those that emerge spontaneously from commonly felt sentiments in a community.
These organizations sometimes solidify into nonprofit or volunteer organizations,
which in national or international spheres are often called civil society organiza-
tions (CSOs) or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
In some contexts, feminist activism has permeated government and is called
state feminism. This can be seen in many European, Latin American and African
countries, which have created Ministries for Women’s Affairs. These governmen-
tal agencies work within the branches of government to mainstream gender equal-
Copyright © 2014. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.
ity and push for reform. Oftentimes, their leaders come from the ranks of
nongovernmental feminist activism. Sometimes, state feminism is co-opted by
state interests and ceases to be fully feminist or activist in orientation. Some
believe that the term state feminism is an oxymoron. But others believe it is the
best way to ensure that change occurs, because it is from within. State feminism
is also sometimes aided by nonstate feminist activism, but in other instances, state
feminism attempts to replace or hinder nonstate feminism. Many national efforts
to combat violence against women and to help reintegrate women offenders have
benefited from the laws, policies and programs supported through state feminism
(Research Network on Gender Politics and the State, http://libarts.wsu.edu/pppa/
rngs/index.html; McBride & Mazur, 2011).
Of course, there are gender-equality or women’s activists who are not feminist.
Some religious organizations, for example, actively advocate for women’s issues
but stop short of advocating for radical change or change that affects reproductive
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Law, human rights, and organizations 63
Transnational activism
In the 1990s, scholars became interested in studying the new phenomenon of the
transnationalization of activism. In Chapter 2, we saw how one advantage of
globalization for many activists was the facilitation of a global resistance move-
ment fueled by the ease of global communications. (Of course, one wonders if
this would have occurred without the pernicious effects on various sectors of the
world population of globalization itself.) Transnational activists have added new
techniques to those already used locally, trying to unite both local and global
strategies.
The intersection of social movements that have transnationalized is one way
women find each other and discover commonalities by gender. Many social
movements are globalized, and given that women are often part of other struggles
against oppression, they sometimes find themselves while advocating in other
organizations. Ferree and Mueller (2004) demonstrate that women frequently
advocate for many causes – anti-poverty campaigns, nationalism, anti-racism,
anti-colonialism, self-determination, democracy, children’s rights, pacifism, the
environment. It is within these movements that women sometimes discover that
Copyright © 2014. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.
layers of oppression operate and that women’s issues are pushed to the margins.
Additionally, some social movements are male dominated, and women some-
times realize their own marginalization as women within other types of transna-
tional activism, or question the process of decision making and authority within
an organization, which may mirror male authority structures in wider society.
Antrobus (2004) notes that consciousness raising across borders is key to trans-
national activism. Meeting and discussing common issues, and realizing that
despite cultural differences, the issues are really the same, facilitates transnational
activism. In fact, while diversity can sometimes divide social movements, schol-
ars suggest it can also facilitate strength (Motta, Flesher Fominaya, Eschle &
Cox, 2011). But despite these realizations, Antrobus argues that for a movement
to really have ‘globality’, local activists must realize that transnational trends are
at the root of many local problems or issues. The idea of a spiral illustrates this
kind of consciousness raising (Antrobus, p. x). This spiral might start with a
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64 Global forces
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Law, human rights, and organizations 65
Beijing (1995) gave political voice to the growing global women’s movement,
along with the Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993 where women’s
rights were clearly linked to human rights. These efforts by the United Nations
allowed grassroots women’s organizations the opportunity to interface with each
other. Milwertz (2003) and Zhang (2009), among others, note how important this
interface at the 1995 World Conference for Women in Beijing was for budding
women’s activists against domestic violence in the People’s Republic of China.
Although many women’s activists of this era regard the interface with each other
as most important, it is also obvious that the contact between activists and repre-
sentatives of world governments at the women’s conferences gave them unprec-
edented access to power. Many of the grassroots organizations attending these
conferences were not even recognized or acknowledged by their own govern-
ments. Thus, they were able to gain recognition once they stepped outside their
countries’ borders. Often, their local knowledge, reflected in such things as
‘shadow reports’ (those that parallel official government reports and frequently
highlight discrepancies with the ‘official story’), delivered on the global stage of
the United Nations, served as a powerful mechanism to hold governments
accountable to their citizens and to the world community.
The initial concerns of the global women’s movement, curiously enough, did
not include violence against women, even though in the 1970s, women’s grass-
roots organizations were aware of this problem. But grassroots leaders were not
convinced that this issue, because it occurred in the private sphere, could be tack-
led in the public sphere. The United Nations was and still is a male-dominated
institution. The first women’s conference, in 1975, coincided with the Interna-
tional Women’s Year and had the themes of equality, development and peace.
Initial issues that were brought forth at the women’s conferences were literacy,
education and training; health, nutrition and population; family, household and
marriage; employment and economics; housing, political participation, human
rights and peace. The second women’s conference (1980) had as its themes educa-
tion, employment and health but took these issues more politically, embracing
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others such as apartheid, refugee and displaced women and the Arab-Israeli con-
flict. It did feature discussions of domestic violence and sexual violence, includ-
ing female genital cutting. The third women’s conference (1985) was more
explicitly feminist and diverse than the previous two (Antrobus, 2004) and tackled
violence against women and children, pornography and legal redress for women.
But violence against women turned into a global movement in the 1990s after
the 1993 Human Rights Conference in Vienna and the 1995 World Conference
for Women in Beijing. In 1993 the UN General Assembly adopted the Declara-
tion on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and violence against women
became part of the 1995 women’s conference agenda. Intense mobilization
occurred prior to the 1993 conference, much of it coordinated by Charlotte Bunch
at the Center for Global Women’s Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey
in the United States. A global petition was launched to conceptualize women’s
rights as human rights. The Global Tribunal on Violations of Women’s Human
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66 Global forces
Rights collected testimony of abuses toward women from around the world. A
special rapporteur on violence against women was also an important outcome of
the 1993 conference: this new figure would monitor progress on the Declaration.
The 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing produced an important out-
come document, the Beijing Platform for Action, which included violence against
women as a strategic objective, as well as the human rights of women. To this day,
the Beijing Platform for Action shapes the agenda of the annual sessions of the
Commission on the Status of Women in New York City, around which thousands
of activists from around the world organize parallel events, much in the same way
they organized NGO forums at the world women’s conferences.
It was not until the human rights framework was feminized – and feminists
realized that the state, by its actions as well as omissions, could be held respon-
sible for the private violence against women – that the ‘glass ceiling’ was broken
and violence against women was truly brought onto the global political stage.
There is ongoing debate about whether a universalist discourse such as human
rights should be applied to violence against women, because this discourse is said
to mask Western imperialism and thus render the diversity of women’s oppres-
sions invisible, but the language of human rights is adaptive and can and has been
used within many local contexts. It became at this point a new paradigm for think-
ing about and combating violence against women.
Since 1995 there have been no more world women’s conferences, and there has
yet to be a generational turnover to younger activists to carry on the activities that
were started in the 1970s. Backlash against feminism and the success of neolib-
eral economic policies in debilitating the energy of women prevented the nurtur-
ing of a younger generation of activists as the older generation grew tired and
retired. The War on Terror and the rise of fundamentalism have also changed the
political stage. There is the sensation as well that much has been achieved, cer-
tainly on paper, and that the activist community has made as much headway as it
can at the United Nations. The politics at the moment are much more about
accountability – holding governments responsible for their obligations, imple-
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Law, human rights, and organizations 67
What sort of activism takes place under the rubric of women-centered or feminist
organizations? Most organizations take on more than one goal and combine advo-
cacy with the provision of services, education and awareness raising. Most
organizations expand to create sister organizations or join national, regional and
transnational networks to pool money and energy.
Internationally, these organizations try to change laws and policies, as well as
hold governments accountable for the laws and policies that are on the books and
support women’s rights. Comprehensive violence-against-women laws have
become a common goal of many groups working at the national and international
levels. According to the 2006 UN Secretary General’s Report on Violence
Against Women, approximately half of the countries in the world have adopted
comprehensive legislation to address the problem of violence against women.
Even though the actual policies may vary from country to country, there is a gen-
eral similarity in the overall goal of this legislation: to define, eradicate and
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68 Global forces
prevent the different forms of violence against women. In most countries, anti-
violence legislation evolved from the persistent demands of feminists and women-
centered human rights activists who raised awareness of the impact and
implications violence has on the lives of women and girls. In some countries,
governmental agencies responsible for the status of women have sheltered such
efforts. Partial reforms that were enacted from the 1970s onward – mandatory
arrest policies, specialized courts, the funding and development of hotlines, wom-
en’s refuges and programs for male batterers – led to the idea in the 1980s and
1990s that comprehensive reform might be the ultimate solution. Comprehensive
reform is understood in different ways and in different national contexts; it includes
an intersection of legal reforms (civil, criminal, administrative) along with meas-
ures designed to change attitudes (public awareness campaigns, school-based
educational programs, training programs for health and criminal justice personnel,
restrictions on sexist advertising and pornography), increased funding for treatment
of survivors and perpetrators and the creation of partnerships, such as multi-agency
teams or domestic violence courts that seek to provide ‘one-stop’ services. In many
states, the influence and pressure of the national and international activist commu-
nity has been instrumental in influencing domestic reforms. Some activist organi-
zations educate the public as well as criminal justice officials, whether through the
provision of education and training to police, prosecutors and judges or through
pressure exerted externally on these organizations to elicit change.
Apart from laws and policies on violence against women, many activist organi-
zations seek to offer services that the government either cannot afford to offer,
refuses to offer or wishes to outsource to an organization with more expertise.
These services include counseling, legal aid and the provision of hotlines and
shelters. Seager (2009, p. 29) offers a timeline of when the first shelters for bat-
tered women were set up in various countries of the world. The early 1970s saw
the birth of shelters in the UK, Canada, the USA, Netherlands and Australia.
Tunisia, Namibia, Russia, Mongolia and China did not have their first shelters
until the 1990s. Laos got its first shelter in 2006, and Afghanistan in 2007.
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Law, human rights, and organizations 69
urges men and women to interrupt domestic violence scenarios by such a simple
action as ringing the neighbors’ doorbell (www.bellbajao.org/).
There are relatively few activist organizations around the world that work
with women offenders and women in prison, compared with those that work with
women who are survivors of violence, but they provide important services. They
often run prison programs for women and offer alternatives to incarceration as
well as reentry programs such as mentoring schemes. Given that research now
indicates that many women in prison have been abused, women’s organizations
also work to ensure that those women receive treatment and protection. Activists
work to ensure that women prisoners know their rights and are afforded the same
opportunities in education, work training and family visits as men are. They run
transportation schemes so that family members can visit their incarcerated female
relatives. And they work with the children of incarcerated women to ensure their
well-being. In countries where women are incarcerated for their own protection
against ‘honor’ crimes committed by their families, assisting women in prison
becomes even more important.
Finally, some professional organizations for women criminal justice practition-
ers (police officers, judges, prison officers, peacekeepers) offer a range of services
and advocacy, to encourage recruitment, promotion and networking and to fight
against sexual harassment. These can be considered activism because the goal is
to achieve social change by increasing the number of women in these professions
and creating a more gender-sensitive workplace.
nist activist techniques. This group was created in Buenos Aires during Argenti-
na’s ‘dirty war’. A true grassroots movement, it was formed when mothers of
desaparecidos – people who had mysteriously disappeared – decided to organize
and demand accountability from the military dictatorship. They found each other
in Buenos Aires’ main square across from the presidential palace and met every
Thursday to walk together around the square. These accidental activists – family
members of victims of human rights violations – learned how to be politically
savvy, in many ways learning vicariously from their children, most of whom were
never found. They taught women around the world the importance of rage and
showed women that activism comes from the heart but overtakes the mind and
spirit. Because they were mostly middle-aged middle- and lower-class women,
and because they were both persistent politically as well as interpersonally sup-
portive and nurturing of each other, their group served as a model for many other
associations of mothers for diverse causes around the world. These women found
Barberet, R. L. (2014). Women, Crime and Criminal Justice. : Taylor and Francis. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
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70 Global forces
their political voice, but also psychological support, from their common experi-
ence and mobilization to find out what had happened to their children (Abreu
Hernandez, 2002).
Another example of a watchdog organization is the Women’s Initiatives for
Gender Justice (www.iccwomen.org), an international women’s human rights
group that works through the ICC as well as through national mechanisms. They
work with women in conflict situations under investigation by the ICC, seated in
the Hague in the Netherlands. The Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice works
in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, the Central African
Republic, Kenya, Libya and Kyrgyzstan.
The watchdog activities of the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice include
“monitoring the ICC to ensure implementation of the Rome Statute, including the
gender-inclusive provisions; ensuring sexualized violence and gender based
crimes are a priority in the investigations and prosecutions of the ICC; advocating
for women victims/survivors to benefit from the reparations mechanisms and
processes of the Court; promoting the international gender standards of the Rome
Statute and supporting national law reform to advance women’s human rights
through use of the Statute and implementing legislation; and influencing and
strengthening the gender competence of the ICC through training and the recruit-
ment and appointment of women, including experts on gender and sexual vio-
lence amongst the personnel of the Court” (www.iccwomen.org/aboutus/mission.
php; Cakmak, 2009; Spees, 2003).
Every year, the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice (2012) produces a Gen-
der Report Card on the ICC. The eighth report card appeared in 2012 and totaled
over 300 pages, covering the structures and institutional development of the ICC
and the substantive jurisdiction, work and procedures of the ICC. The report notes
milestones for women as well as many recommendations. There are few reports
done by NGOs that are as detailed and consistently produced.
Women prisoners/reentry
Copyright © 2014. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.
Very globally active in promoting the rights and fair treatment of women prison-
ers is the Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends. In Canada, a women’s
prison reform organization founded in 1939 in Vancouver named itself after the
Quaker Elizabeth Fry. In the 1970s, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry
Societies was established and now incorporates 26 member societies. The goals
of Elizabeth Fry Societies are to “increase public awareness and promotion of
decarceration for women; reduce the numbers of women who are criminalized
and imprisoned in Canada; increase the availability of community-based, publicly
funded social service, health and educational resources available for marginal-
ized, victimized, criminalized and imprisoned women; and increase collaborative
work among Elizabeth Fry Societies and other women’s groups working to
address poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression” (www.elizabethfry.ca/
egoals.html).
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Law, human rights, and organizations 71
Each Elizabeth Fry Society offers a variety of services. For example, the Eliza-
beth Fry Society in Montréal, Québec offers counseling and referral services,
paralegal assistance in court, a documentation center, a stop-shoplifting program
for women, a food bank, a prerelease program, an anger management program
and a volunteer training program at Joliette prison, research, a residential halfway
house, prison visits and a newsletter published twice a year on women in conflict
with the law, a promotional and informational tool for the society.
violence cases. Southall Black Sisters is advocating for a new law to ensure that
those who are responsible for causing someone to attempt or commit suicide are
held accountable by the state (www.southallblacksisters.org.uk).
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72 Global forces
Tostan
Tostan, meaning ‘Breakthrough’ in Wolof, is an African-based community
empowerment organization. It has been credited with reducing the incidence of
female genital cutting in a number of African countries. Tostan was founded by
an American exchange student, Molly Melching, and now works in eight African
countries. As we will see in Chapter 4, female genital cutting is an interesting case
of an act that has been criminalized and is certainly a harmful cultural practice in
the eyes of the international human rights community, but it is embedded within
local traditions and has the opposite meaning among those who practice it. It
therefore defies much of what conventional criminologists define as crime. Efforts
to eradicate female genital cutting through conventional means – criminalization,
public health awareness, education – have largely failed because they were heav-
ily resisted by those who believed outsiders wished to destroy traditions. Tostan
employs a community development model that is nonconfrontational and enables
communities to make their own decisions. They have been evaluated twice with
positive results. A recent UNICEF study on female genital mutilation delivers
surprisingly mediocre results, however, of their efforts. Nevertheless, this model
suggests that practices can be changed nonconfrontationally by allowing com-
munities to become more self-aware (www.tostan.org).
Copyright © 2014. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.
Peacebuilding
The Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) is a coalition of over 60
women’s groups and other civil society organizations from Africa, Asia/Pacific,
South Asia, West Asia, Latin America and eastern and western Europe. It focuses
on advocacy and action for the implementation of UNSCRs 1325 and 1820 on
women and peace and security, including the supporting resolutions 1888, 1889 and
1960 at the local, national, regional and international levels. As mentioned previ-
ously, these resolutions deal with the presence of women at peace talks, the impor-
tance of women to the peace process and the cessation of sexual violence in armed
conflicts. The aim of GNWP is to bridge the gap between policy/implementation
and action on the ground on women, peace and security issues. GNWP engages in
policy advocacy, training, local legislative advocacy and research (www.gnwp.org).
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Law, human rights, and organizations 73
Human trafficking
Since 2001, the La Strada network has been working in eight member countries:
Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedo-
nia, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland and Ukraine, with an international headquar-
ters in Amsterdam. All eight La Strada members work according to the same
basic program – however, the exact services offered can vary. The three basic
areas of the La Strada program are information and lobbying, prevention and
education and assistance and support. La Strada develops complete care programs
for trafficked persons, operates local helplines to provide anonymous consulta-
tions and advice, advocates for the special needs and interests of trafficked per-
sons, develops international networks of NGOs and other institutions to offer safe
return to countries of origin and establishes local and national networks of ser-
vices that support trafficked persons and affected groups.
Maiti Nepal is an influential anti-trafficking organization in Nepal (Kaufman &
Crawford, 2011). It advocates for women and children, particularly those who
have been exploited or who are at risk of exploitation. It runs transit houses for
those it rescues and safe migration programs and awareness camps for those at
risk. It intercepts trafficking attempts at the Nepal border. Founded in 1993 by a
group of professionals, it is active throughout Nepal (www.maitinepal.org).
Men’s groups
The most well known men’s group that works globally for the eradication of
gender-based violence is the White Ribbon Campaign. In 1991, this NGO of
Toronto origin asked men to wear white ribbons as a pledge to never commit,
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74 Global forces
condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. Since then, the
White Ribbon has spread to over 60 countries around the world. The group
engages in education, awareness raising, outreach, technical assistance, capacity
building, partnerships and campaigns (www.whiteribbon.ca/who-we-are).
Conclusions
International law and global women’s activism go hand in hand to spur reforms
related to women, crime and justice. Both are underexplored areas of research for
feminist criminology. The decisions of intergovernmental bodies as they relate to
women, crime and justice offer enormous opportunities for research and theory
on international criminal justice decision making and women. Direct observations
of these bodies provide even more opportunities for research (Connell, 2005;
Fleetwood & Haas, 2011; Merry, 2006; Zhang, 2009). There is enormous varia-
tion in the goals and activities of organizations that work to end violence against
women, improve the treatment of women offenders and prisoners and advance
and promote women criminal justice professionals. It is particularly striking how
much the work that activists undertake is both local and global, while the different
organizations share similar approaches. Feminist criminology has an important
contribution to make in this arena. Many grassroots organizations around the
world are in need of research support in program design and evaluation. More
research needs to be done on the effectiveness of organizations as well as the
strategies they employ. The comparative study of intergovernmental decision
making in the area of women, crime and justice, as well as its linkages with trans-
national feminist activism, has much to teach us about the possibilities of global
change in justice for women.
Notes
1. Prosecutor v Tadic; Prosecutor v Funrunzija; Prosecutor v Kunarac et al; Prosecutor
v Akayesu; Prosecutor v Delalic; and Prosecutor v Krstic (UN Women, 2011, p. 21).
Copyright © 2014. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.
2. Part 2, Article 7, “Crimes against humanity: For the purpose of this Statute, ’crime
against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a wide-
spread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of
the attack: . . . (g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy,
enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity.’ ”
http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/romefra.htm
3. This mainstreaming is evidenced in paragraph 14: “Differentiation: Crime prevention
strategies should, when appropriate, pay due regard to the different needs of men and
women and consider the special needs of vulnerable members of society”; paragraph
27: “Governments and civil society should endeavour to analyse and address the links
between transnational organized crime and national and local crime problems by, inter
alia: . . . (c) Designing crime prevention strategies, where appropriate, to protect
socially marginalized groups, especially women and children, who are vulnerable to the
action of organized criminal groups, including trafficking in persons and smuggling of
migrants”; and paragraph 28: “In promoting international action in crime prevention,
Member States are invited to take into account the main international instruments
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Law, human rights, and organizations 75
related to human rights and crime prevention to which they are parties, such . . . the
Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (resolution 48/104).”
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