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Article Excerpt
Over the past 15-20 years there has been a dramatic increase in transnational social movements including the movement to eradicate violence against women. This paper examines the development of the transnational women's movement and the prioritizing of violence against women (VAW) as a universal women's agenda using the United Nations (U.N.) human rights conferences as a focal point. As one form of VAW, domestic violence (DV) has been placed into the human rights context by many organizations globally. The implications and possible limitations of universalizing a framework for DV are explored using salient examples from various areas of the world. It is suggested that the framing of DV as a human rights violation is relevant to social work in light of social work's role in the critical analysis of framing of social problems and the emergent movement in the United States for social work to become more internationally-focused.
Keywords: Domestic violence, human rights, violence against women, U.N. human rights conferences, international social work
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Linking violence against women (VAW) to human rights is rooted in the movement to recognize "women's rights as human rights" (Bunch, 1990) and to recent United Nations (U.N.) conventions and declarations, including the 1993 Declaration to Eliminate Violence against Women, the 1992 19th General Recommendation made by the Committee to Eliminate Discrimination against Women and the 1995 Beijing Declaration (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). This linking of VAW and human rights has influenced the transnational women's movement and women's movements around the world. Funding entities, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and state governments have all taken up the challenge to work towards the elimination of violence against women (Dauer, 2002; Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Merry, 2002).
In recent years domestic violence (DV), as one form of VAW, has been examined using a human rights framework with much of the accompanying dialogue centering on the applicability of international law to DV--primarily focusing on the debate regarding the so-called private nature of DV and how private, individual violence can be addressed through international law (Amnesty International, 2005; Beasley & Thomas, 1994; Coomaraswarmy, 2000; Hawkins & Humes, 2002; Levesque, 1999; Moore, 2003; Roth, 1994; Zorn, 1999).
This paper summarizes the rise of the international women's movement in relation to human rights and violence against women and examines a number of examples from the global DV movement to illustrate how the tendency towards using universal frameworks may be problematic. The examples demonstrate how Northern conceptualizations of DV, which some would argue may be driving the human rights movement (Grewal, 1999; Mertus & Goldberg, 1994), have influenced the framing of DV and interventions in various cultural contexts. The North/South distinction used throughout this paper characterizes the North geographically and symbolically as the site of most of the world's privileged and affluent countries versus the South as the site of countries that are economically, socially and politically marginalized. This geographical distinction is based on the Northern/Southern hemispheres yet also is used symbolically to differentiate between the privileged and marginalized peoples, regardless of geographical location (Dirlik, 1997; Mohanty, 2002). This exploration is relevant to social work given of the role of social workers in framing and intervening in social problems as well as the current focus on the globalization of social work practice (Caragata & Sanchez, 2002; Mohan, 2005).
Violence against Women and Human Rights
The United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women defines violence against women as physical, sexual, and/or psychological violence within the family, the community, and/or any violence that is condoned by the state. Some examples included in the definition are marital rape and spousal abuse, sexual harassment, and trafficking (U.N., 1993, Article 2).
Given that there has been a general consensus through international committees and conventions on the Declaration's definition of VAW, this will be the working definition that will be used throughout the paper. A critical area of concern however, is the degree to which various cultural groups define VAW in a different manner and whose voices may have been left out of the international dialogue regarding VAW. Future research to illuminate these issues should examine the impact that universalizing language and conceptualizations of violence in international human rights has had upon various groups--particularly groups that either may be less represented in the international human rights arena or groups that may have a different construction of human rights.
In 1948 the U.N. General Assembly created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which, while not binding, set in motion the development of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Taken together, these covenants provide the basis for what is seen as transnational human rights (U.N., 1978). Both the ICCPR and the ICESCR indicate that the rights should be ascribed equally to men and women. The Convention to Eliminate Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) ultimately holds ratifying states accountable for insuring that women's rights are protected under the ICCPR and the ICESCR. Additionally, this convention provides a framework in which ratifying states are held accountable to change cultural norms that oppress women (Freeman, 1993).
Transnational Social Movements
Transnational social movements (TSM) have dramatically increased over the last 15-20 years, in part due to the end of the Cold War, increased challenges due to globalization and increased communication technology. As multilateral organizations such as the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Alliance were established to address transnational development, TSM have continued to grow to address the social, economic and environmental changes that multilateral organizations and corporations have wrought. These movements have also grown in conjunction with the increased role of the United Nations (U.N.) in addressing human rights, peace, and environmental issues (Smith, 2004).
One of the primary avenues for growth and exchange of ideas for TSM organizations has been U.N.-sponsored conferences, particularly the numerous conferences held in the 1990s (Ferree & Mueller, 2004; Smith, 2004). These conferences have been seen as avenues for training, resource exchange, and networking, and as targeted arenas for the development of international, national and local political campaigns. In addition to the U.N.-sponsored conferences, additional meetings have occurred in conjunction with the conferences with the strategy of "piggy-backing" on international meetings...
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