Violence Against Women

IWRAW AP’s strategy to address gender-based violence against women (GBVAW) is aimed at dismantling unequal power relations, as well as addressing the structural and systemic discrimination in which GBVAW manifests. Our work focuses on using the CEDAW framework as a conceptual tool and an advocacy space to address positive and negative norms that influence ideas, behaviours and laws around GBVAW. We also use CEDAW to strategically support the national activism of women’s rights organisations to hold states accountable for cases of GBVAW.

We work towards the progressive interpretation and development of GBVAW standards in international and regional advocacy spaces, including CEDAW, by providing strategic and technical support to facilitate the engagement of national women’s rights organisations with these spaces and processes. IWRAW AP also engages directly with global advocacy spaces and other treaty bodies to integrate the CEDAW framework on GBVAW.

IWRAW AP’s engagement with legal actors through our Access to Justice programme, including judges, lawyers and other state institutions, employs a multi-pronged strategy to enhance the capacity of these legal actors in applying the CEDAW framework to domestic cases and to facilitate cross-learning exchanges with the aim of identifying strategies and solutions to address GBVAW.