Join the New Tactics community for an online conversation onViolence against Women: Advocating for Legal Reform from September 26th – 30th, 2016.

Across the world, women are abused, trafficked, raped and killed. Violence against women is a grave violation of human rights, negatively affecting women’s well-being and precluding women from fully participating in society. It not only leads to severe physical, sexual and mental consequences to each individual victim, but tears their families, community and society apart.

In Guatemala, two women are murdered, each day. In India, as many as 22 women are killed daily for dowry. In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, between 40 and 70 percent of female murder victims were killed by their intimate partners. 120 million girls worldwide have experienced forced sexual acts at some point in their lives. According to 2016 estimates published on the United Nations’ International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, at least 200 million women and girls have been subjected to female genital mutilation. Women and girls account for about 70 per cent of trafficking victims. Many victims suffer in silence for fear of losing the economic support of the male perpetrator or fear of victim blaming and even when a victim reports to law enforcement agents, the issue is often trivialized.

Although decades of women’s movements have made unprecedented progress towards ending gender-based violence, according to UNIFEM (formerly the UN agency for gender equity, now UN Women), chasms in legal frameworks remain: states fail their international obligations and commitments to prevent violence against women; many perpetrators escape from being held accountable; and women continue to be re-victimized through the legal process. Legal reform could provide effective protections. Such reform must make legislation easy to be enforced, monitored and adequately allocate resources to address the problem. Governments, UN agencies, civil society organizations and other institutions should partner in this process of adopting and enacting legal reforms.

In this conversation, we seek to discuss tactics for developing effective legal reform to prevent violence against women, monitoring and enforcing laws, and building advocacy for legal reform.  Join us for this important discussion!