Today marks International Women’s Day, a day that draws global attention to the ongoing struggle for gender equality. One of the greatest obstacles toward equality is the crisis of violence against women and girls -- the most widespread human rights violation of our time.

At least one in three women globally has been beaten or assaulted in her lifetime, according to the World Health Organization. This statistic does not include online violence, sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women. On average, more than 133 women or girls are killed every day by someone in their own family. Every year, 12 million girls under the age of 18 are married. Rape remains a widespread and underreported issue in every nation. So-called honor killings are prevalent in many countries. Sex and labor trafficking remains rife. Moreover, women and girls are subjected to new and evolving forms of violence, most notably technology-based violence. UN Women recently reported that “no country is within reach of eradicating intimate partner violence,” and that we are “failing women and girls.”

Here at home, women and girls are the primary victims of gender-based violence crimes, according to Nepal Police’s Annual Factsheet on Gender-Based Violence. Nearly 90 percent of domestic violence cases are perpetrated by men against women. Girls aged 11 to 16 experienced the highest rates of violence. Additionally, 89 percent of the people trafficked in Nepal are women and girls.

The good news is that we can change this. I am a part of an effort to create a legally binding instrument at the global level to eradicate violence against women and girls. The best option is a new optional protocol on violence against women and girls connected to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). (An optional protocol is a treaty attached to another treaty.)

CEDAW is the world’s leading treaty on women’s rights, making it an ideal home for a new optional protocol. As one of the most widely ratified UN conventions in the world (189 nations), its near-global subscription can help facilitate the ratification of a new protocol. Additionally, the baseline text already exists in CEDAW General Recommendation 35 on violence against women and girls.

A new optional protocol would set a minimum standard for State obligations to strengthen protections on violence against women and girls domestically and facilitate oversight and accountability globally. Based on General Recommendation 35, the protocol would include interventions proven to lower rates of violence, including:

Legal reform – Adopt laws prohibiting all forms of violence against women and girls.  

Training and accountability – For law enforcement, judges and health professionals on the problem and protocols for action.

Prevention Education – Early education in schools for boys and girls as well as education for women and men, mothers and fathers. 

Survivor services – Shelters, comprehensive medical treatment, and financial support for survivors seeking refuge and justice from violence.

Funding – Provide adequate resources to implement these interventions.

Our coalition, Every Woman Treaty, is not the only group calling for a new optional protocol. The current UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, and her two predecessors have issued a joint statement calling for this new instrument. Four nations – Antigua and Barbuda, Costa Rica, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone – are championing this cause among UN Member States.

Regional mechanisms have worked to address the problem, but they leave nearly 75 percent of the world’s women and girls without the protection of a binding framework. We must come together to enact a new optional protocol to CEDAW to end violence against women and girls.

Treaties cement norms and standards into a binding framework. They prioritize an issue globally and at the national level. With women and girls dying every day, a new optional protocol on violence against women and girls to CEDAW is the most expedient path to a safer world for women and girls.

It is crucial for every country, including Nepal, to actively support the creation, adoption, and implementation of a new Optional Protocol to CEDAW to end violence against women and girls. Every individual should write to their government official calling on them to support a new Optional Protocol.

If we come together, we can end the most widespread human rights violation on earth. We can create a safe world where all women and girls live free from violence. We can help move the needle toward equality and justice.

 
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