Promoting and Protecting the Human Rights of Women and Girls A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions that their work to promote and protect the rights of women and girls is complementary and mutually supportive.5 RATIONALE NHRIs are a vital part of strong national human rights protection systems. They also play a key role in linking the international and domestic human rights systems. Their mandate means that they can engage with all relevant actors at the national level, as well as interact with regional and international bodies and mechanisms, to advocate for laws, policies and practices that protect the human rights of vulnerable groups, including women and girls. The relationships that many NHRIs establish with the communities they serve also provides them with opportunities to help change the attitudes and behaviours that contribute to the many harms committed against women and girls. There is a clear need for NHRIs to play close attention to the human rights of women and girls. In every country, women are at particular risk of gender-based violence; from the State, from the community and from intimate partners and family members. For example, rape in marriage is often not criminalized and domestic violence is still too rarely prosecuted and punished. In these areas, and in many others, women are denied equal access to justice and to remedies for crimes and violations committed against them. Women experience direct discrimination in many areas of public and private life. They may be prevented from entering certain occupations or positions and may receive unequal pay for work that is of equal value to that done by men. They may lose their jobs when they have children and may experience sexual harassment in the workplace. Equal access to health and education is often denied to women, with serious consequences for their well-being and economic empowerment. Property and inheritance laws sometimes discriminate against women, entrenching poverty and dependence. In the Asia Pacific region, as in most parts of the world, there is a marked absence of women in public life and in positions of power and influence.6 That situation is a reflection of entrenched gender discrimination and also contributes to perpetuating inequality and discrimination. While explicitly addressing itself to the human rights of women, this Manual is also very much focused on the rights of girls. Girls suffer many of the same human rights violations as women. Similarly, laws, policies and practices that discriminate against women will inevitably include and affect girls. However, girls are subject to special vulnerabilities that reflect their sex, as well as vulnerabilities associated with childhood. Child marriage, discrimination in education and harmful traditional practices are examples of human rights violations that are particularly relevant to the lives of girls. This Manual also makes the point that “business as usual” is not sufficient for advancing the rights of women and girls. The long-standing marginalization of women’s human rights in the international human rights system, described in Chapter 1, is just one example of this. To contribute to genuine change, NHRIs need to take proactive steps and “mainstream” the human rights of women and girls and a gender approach within their work. As the United Nations Secretary-General explains: Mainstream human rights approaches have long been based on the presumption that human rights norms are gender neutral or unaffected by gender. However, structural imbalances of power between women and men, the systemic nature of discrimination against women and the general absence of women in law creation and implementation processes continue to reflect disproportionately the experiences of men and exclude the experiences of women. These imbalances also influence the generally accepted understanding of international human rights vi 5 See the APF Action Plan on the Human Rights of Women and Girls: Promoting Gender Equality; 2012; para. 7; available at www.asiapacificforum.net/resources/apf-regional-action-plan-women-and-girls/. 6 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics, 2010, pp. 111-125 and Table 5.A (pp. 21-222).