Conceptualising Violence Against Women in the Work of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women

Abstract

Since the creation of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences (SRVAW) in 1994, each of the three women who have held the position have sought to answer the question of what causes violence against women. The SRVAWs have drawn upon theoretical debates about violence against women and incorporated the ideas underpinning both a continuum of violence approach (that experiences of violence against women are connected through the gender of the victim-survivor and that violence against women is caused by patriarchal power structures) and the theory of intersectionality (that violence against women occurs because of the relationship between different types of oppression).

Chapter One examines the relationship between a continuum of violence and intersectionality as approaches to violence against women. Chapter Two then examines how these approaches have been applied within the work of the SRVAW. I conclude that despite the significant progress, there is no easy way to articulate what causes violence against women that simultaneously captures the experiences of women as a class and where an individual is situated within multiple and intersecting power structures. This paper aims to show that the SRVAW’s analysis of the causes and consequences of violence against women would be enhanced by explicitly using the concepts of a continuum of violence and intersectionality in conjunction with one another to create a more holistic analysis.

*This paper was written as an honours thesis at the ANU College of Law, under the supervision of Professor Hilary Charlesworth.

Keywords: Violence against women, gender-based violence, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, continuum of violence, intersectionality, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Dr Yakin Ertürk, Rashida Manjoo