Dear Members, Refering to the message from Carin Benninger-Budel, I am very encouraged by the work of the OMCT.
I am particularly interested in her reference to customary law and how it can be a source of the violence perpetrated against women. According to the Beijing Platform for Action (see D. Violence Against Women para. 118), violence against women is a manifestation of historical, customary, and cultural relations between men and women. Yet, in many developing countries the judicial system comprises both a usually well respected customary law as well as statute law. Customary law is a double edged sword so to speak - it can include important social norms such as ways of resolving disputes (restorative justice) and yet it is usually steeped in traditional ways of looking at gender which puts males in control so that they can do what they like with women. I used to work as Secretary General of the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association in London and there was no doubt that judges and magistrates in many parts of the world applied a blend of both laws. However, there was constant discussion of how all laws, whether customary or statute should be continually reviewed and revised to reflect modern standards and norms of which we have plenty. I would suggest that governments not only establish programmes to prevent and combat violence against women but they need to criminalize such violent and discriminatory customary practices, and to ensure that all bad laws are repealed so that judges cannot impose such sanctions. I once met a very senior South African High Court Judge who made it very clear to me that she had absolutely no time for customary law per se as, she believed, it was all based on discrimination. She wanted all law to begin with their then new Constitution. Vivienne Chin International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy Vancouver, Canada www.icclr.law.ubc.ca On 14/5/02, Carin Benninger-Budel wrote: > OMCT just published a second collection of reports, "Violence Against > Women: 10 Reports/Year 2001", within the framework of our Violence against > Women Programme. The publication forms part of the Programme's work in > the field of integrating the human rights of women and a gender perspective > into the activities of the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring > bodies. Over the past year, OMCT submitted ten alternative country reports > to the six main human rights treaty bodies on Azerbaijan, Bolivia, > Georgia, Indonesia, Israel, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Ukraine and > Zambia. ***End-violence is sponsored by UNIFEM and receives generous support from ICAP*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe end-violence OR type: unsubscribe end-violence Archives of previous End-violence messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/end-violence/hypermail/
