Promoting and Protecting the Human Rights of Women and Girls A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions AMMAN DECLARATION NHRIs agree to the following broad principles and areas of work: • Respond to, conduct inquiries into and investigate allegations of violations of women’s and girls’ human rights, including all forms of discrimination against women and girls, gender-based violence, violations of economic, social and cultural rights, violations of reproductive rights and discrimination in public and political life, and identify systemic issues which may perpetuate these violations. These investigations and reports should result in recommendations to the State to meet their obligations to ensure women’s and girls’ human rights, and to combat impunity (paragraph 4). • Facilitate women’s and girls’ access to justice, including judicial and non-judicial remedies, in accordance with their mandate (paragraph 5). • Where NHRIs have quasi-judicial powers, exercise them fully to provide relief to the women and girl victims and press for administrative action against or the criminal prosecution of offenders (paragraph 6). • Work with women human rights defenders, and devote particular attention to the genderspecific violations that women human rights defenders suffer for being women or because of the gender-specific causes that they defend, and promote their access to remedies in case of violations (paragraph 10). AMMAN PROGRAMME OF ACTION In relation to violence against women and girls, NHRIs agree to: • Encourage and aid the compilation of an evidence base (e.g., data, inquiries, research) on the nature, extent, causes and effects of all forms of gender-based violence, and on the effectiveness of measures to prevent and address gender-based violence (paragraph 15). In relation to reproductive rights, NHRI agree to: • Encourage and aid the compilation of an evidence base (e.g., data, inquiries, research) concerning the exercise of reproductive rights and the right to sexual and reproductive health, including but not limited to cases of de jure and de facto discrimination in access to sexual and reproductive health care information and services, forced sterilization, forced abortion, child marriage, forced marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting, biased sex selection and other harmful practices (paragraph 26). 6.1. INTRODUCTION By their very nature, many violations of women’s human rights are widespread and systemic. They emerge from and reflect trends, attitudes and behaviours that are often deeply entrenched in laws, institutions and social practices. While individual complaint handling mechanisms are a valuable tool for responding to individual cases of human rights violations, they are unlikely to expose these broader forces and contribute to substantial, systemic change. A public inquiry – sometimes known as a “national inquiry” – is an open, comprehensive and focused process that examines a systemic human rights problem in detail. These inquiries draw together a number of the core functions of the NHRI, including research, investigation, policy development and raising public awareness. A major strength of the public inquiry model is that it allows NHRIs to go beyond the investigation of individual complaints. By gathering information and evidence from a variety of sources – including victims, experts and, possibly, alleged perpetrators – the NHRI can identify the underlying factors that contribute to systemic patterns of human rights violations and propose recommendations for positive change. 66