Human Rights: The Status of Women

▪ 1995

      The discrimination and violence experienced by women diverged significantly in 1994 from the vision of freedoms set out in the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document called for such basic individual rights as freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and association, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention, freedom from torture, the right to a fair trial, and freedom from extrajudicial execution.

      During the 1990s groups such as Amnesty International took direct action to stop human rights violations against women in 50 countries around the world. Many of these women—including those imprisoned, in police custody, in areas of armed conflict, and attempting to flee government persecution—endured torture, rape, and such forms of sexual coercion as body-cavity and strip searches. Many governments, however, adamantly refused to recognize rape and sexual abuse by their agents as acts of torture and ill treatment for which the state bore responsibility.

      Although Article Seven of the 1993 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women called upon governments to ensure women's full participation in the political and public life of their countries, women were often detained, harassed, intimidated, or tortured and killed because of their activities in groups that promoted civil, political, social, cultural, or economic rights. Among others, academics in China, journalists in Morocco, lawyers in the Philippines, judges in Colombia, political reformers in Myanmar (Burma), opposition leaders in Mozambique, environmentalists in Kenya, and feminists in Peru were threatened.

      Women members of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities, often marginalized by the dominant culture of their societies, were particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses. For example, the members of CONAVIGUA, the mainly indigenous Guatemalan widows' association organized to find relatives "disappeared" by the Guatemalan security forces, became victims of death threats, detentions, and assaults by the army. Similar abuses were reported in Peru, Brazil, and Mexico, as well as in Mauritania, The Sudan, Myanmar, India, and Bangladesh.

      Family relationships could also trigger human rights violations. Women were frequently singled out for imprisonment, torture, or death because they were related to men suspected of opposing the government. Tunisian authorities arbitrarily detained and tortured the wives or relatives of men linked to illegal organizations, although most detainees were never charged or brought to trial. Similar practices were documented in Turkey, Syria, Guatemala, Iran, Senegal, Peru, and India. (SUZANNE ROACH)

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