Reimagining Responses to Gender-Based Violence
By Katherine E. Schulte, Supervising Attorney, Domestic Violence Institute, Northeastern University School of Law
It’s nearly impossible to read the news today without seeing headlines about the epidemic of sexual violence. In addition to individual accounts of horrific assaults, media reports depict troubling social messages about the culture of sexual violence. These attitudes exist on spectrum, domestically and internationally. At one end there is tolerance of sexual violence and complete impunity for perpetrators; just last month Human Rights Watch released a report titled “Here, Rape is Normal,” which is aimed at combating rampant sexual violence affecting displaced women in Somalia. Sexual assault is a constant threat within US borders as well, as is evidenced by last week’s filing of federal complaints against UC Berkeley by 31 students and alumni who alleged “deliberate indifference” to their reports of campus sexual assault . As one survivor powerfully stated, “You are more likely to be sexually assaulted if you go to college than if you don’t.” Even when action is taken to hold perpetrators accountable, the burden often falls to the survivor to “make the case.” In one particularly troubling recent case, a sexual assault victim was arrested and placed on house arrest to ensure that she would appear in court as a material witness.
As if surviving sexual violence wasn’t traumatic enough, society’s lack of accountability in responding to sexual assault cases is a form of re-victimization. This is where a human rights framework has much to offer in encouraging proactive versus purely reactive responses to gender-based violence. In November 2013, Northeastern University School of Law’s Program on Human Rights in the Global Economy hosted their annual Human Rights Institute, co-convened by the Due Diligence Project (DDP) and NUSL’s Domestic Violence Institute. The Institute, entitled “Human Rights and Violence Against Women: Applying the Due Diligence Principle,” brought together over 100 advocates, scholars, and activists to discuss the relevance of a human rights framework to the issue of ending violence against women in the United States context. The Due Diligence Project’s work shines new light on efforts to end gender-based violence, putting forth a Framework of guiding principles in 5 areas, known as the “5 Ps” of the due diligence principle: prevention, protection, prosecution, punishment, and provision of redress.
The Due Diligence Project will be formally launching its Framework for Accountability to End Violence against Women on March 13, 2014 at an event sponsored by the Governments of Malaysia and Germany. In keeping with the UN Commission on the Status of Women’s priority theme regarding Millennium Development Goals for women and girls, the DDP will be convening a panel titled “Beyond 2015: Due Diligence Framework to End Violence against Women.” The DDP’s efforts are an important step not just in achieving justice for individual survivors, but in creating a broader system of accountability for combatting the pervasive problem of gender-based violence worldwide.